Board Minutes:
JANUARY 12, 2007 | APRIL 27, 2007 | JUNE 9, 2007 | AUGUST 25, 2007 | DECEMBER 2, 2007
JANUARY 15, 2008 |
JANUARY 25, 2008 |
APRIL 5, 2008 |
JUNE 16, 2008 |
OCTOBER 17, 2008
JANUARY 24, 2009 |
MAY 8, 2009 |
OCTOBER 3, 2009 |
JANUARY 30, 2010 |
APRIL 7, 2010
MAY 10, 2010
USA Water Polo Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of USA Water Polo, Inc. is responsible for setting the overall strategic direction of the corporation. The board is composed of volunteers and structured on a corporate model, consistent with the board of the United States Olympic Committee.
At least two athlete representatives are appointed to the Board, comprising not less than 20% of the voting members. At least two Independent Directors are also elected, who are required to not possess any known affiliations within the corporation. Elected as Independent Directors are Michael Graff, RoAnn Costin, John Hendrickson, and Robert Sternfels. At least three other directors must also not hold any relevant or elected positions within the corporation but may be active in other related aspects of the sport.
RoAnn Costin
Director -
Independent
RoAnn Costin is no stranger to aquatic sports as she played water polo
as an undergraduate at Harvard University where she was a two sport All
American in swimming and crew. At Stanford University’s Graduate
School of Business, teaming up with classmates including former USA
water polo Olympians, she was a member of Stanford Business School’s
undefeated Intra-Mural Water Polo team.
RoAnn is the founder and president of Wilderness Point Investments, a
private equity company which focuses on investing in early and
expansion stage consumer non-durable product and retailing companies.
Ventures in which she has invested and sits on the board of directors
include Lululemon Athletica, Olly Shoes and Gear Six Technologies.
Beginning her business career in 1981 at State Street Research and
Management, Co., RoAnn became the first woman investment analyst,
portfolio manager and partner at SSR&M. She worked for over 20
years in equity analysis and portfolio management at The Putnam
Companies and Reservoir Capital Management. Prior to her career in
business, RoAnn worked in government at the federal and local levels.
She also took part in the formative years of the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University working as the Executive Associate to
the dean of the KSG, Graham T. Allison.
RoAnn resides with her husband, Jim Bailey, and their four sons in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. All four sons have been nationally ranked
swimmers and one has been a four year All-American Academic Water Polo
player at Harvard.
Michael Graff
Director – Independent
Michael Graff was President and Chief Operating Officer of Bombardier Aerospace before joining Warburg Pincus in 2003. Currently, he is involved with the firm’s leveraged buy-out and special situations activities, focusing primarily on the industrial sector. Previously, Michael was a partner at McKinsey & Company in New York, London and Pittsburgh. He received an A.B. from Harvard College in economics and an M.S. from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Michael is a director of Builders FirstSource, CAMP Systems International, Polypore International and TransDigm.
John Hendrickson
Director -
Independent
John resides in San Francisco with his wife and their five children. He is a managing partner with SFRi LLC, an independent investment and advisory firm specializing in insurance and related sectors. John’s charitable activities include membership on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Opera, the Board of Overseers of st. john’s University School of Risk Management in New York City, the Board of Trustees of Children’s Day School in San Francisco, the Olympic Club Foundation, and he is a Trustee of the Stanford University Water Polo Foundation. John received a B.A. in History and a M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University in 1983. John played water polo at Stanford, was a member of the NYAC water polo team when he lived in New York, and is currently a member of the Olympic Club Masters water polo team.
Jeremy Laster
Director – Athlete Representative
Jeremy Laster currently works as a Director of Asset Management for
Rancho Mission Viejo in Orange County, California. He also has a great
deal of water polo experience having played with the Men's Senior
National Team from 1992 until 1998. Jeremy represented Team USA at the
1996 Olympics in Atlanta among many other world championships. A
standout water polo player in college, Jeremy graduated with a degree
from Stanford University. While at Stanford, Jeremy also secured two
NCAA Championships and was honored as an All-American on multiple
occasions.
Ellen Estes Lee
Director – Athlete Representative
Ellen Estes Lee is no stranger to the water polo community having carved out a stellar undergraduate career at Stanford University while becoming a stalwart for the women’s national team. She earned two Olympic Medals at the 2000 and 2004 Games in Sydney and Athens in a national team career spanning six years. A respected leader in the pool, she has accomplished a great deal out of the water as well. A recent graduate of the Harvard Business School, Ellen now works as a Manager in the Pipeline and Portfolio Planning group at Genentech, a biotech company in San Francisco, CA. Prior to receiving her MBA, Ellen spent time at The Boeing Company as an engineer and project leader. She serves as the Athlete Advisory Committee representative to the United States Olympic Committee and as one of two athlete reps on the USAWP board, along with Jeremy Laster, who joined the board in 2008.
Sandy Nitta
Director - At-Large
Sandy Nitta made the U.S. Olympic swim team at age 15 in the 200 meter breaststroke in Tokyo, Japan 1964. Upon the completion of her swim season, Sandy chose to play water polo for its competitive nature. And this choice set her on a path that would sustain a life-long passion and profession.
In 1971 Sandy founded and became head coach of the City of Commerce Water Polo Team. With great family and City Council support and Sandy’s push for team fundraising, the team made their goals. The sport really caught on; within a year they won their first national junior championship. The Commerce water polo program has become a fertile ground for producing international class athletes, including two women that are the backbone the U.S. Olympic team, captain Brenda Villa (coached by Sandy for a year) and Patty Cardenas.
In 1977, Sandy organized the 1st International Women’s Water Polo Tournament held in Commerce as a result of a prior successful tournament in Montreal, Canada. This marked the beginning of the push to get Women’s Water Polo into the Olympic program.
Sandy became the first USA Junior Head Coach in 1979. The following year, Sandy became the USA Women’s National Coach, a position she held until 1994. She has concurrently and subsequently held coaching positions as Head Coach Men’s Water Polo at Rio Hondo College 1989, Head Coach for the Queensland, Australia State Team 1981, Head Coach for Brazil Women’s National Team 1999-2002 (coached in the 1st Pan Am Game for Women), Founder and Head Coach for Team Vegas 1994-1999 and 2004-present, Head Coach for Tualatin Water Polo in Oregon 2002-2004 (where she coached Elsie Windes, member of the 2008 US Olympic Water Polo team), and coached former players to the Gold Medal at the Masters World Championships in 2006.
Throughout these years, Sandy has been very involved in improving the sport of women’s water polo; she has contributed to rules changes, going to a smaller ball, and smaller playing field. In 1999, Sandy Nitta became the first (and remains the only) female coach to be inducted into the Water Polo Hall of Fame.
Sandy has also been a Professional Poker Player spanning from 1980-1997.
Edward Reynolds
Director
Ed Reynolds is President of The Reynolds Group (TRG), a company that restores the earth and potable groundwater in California and Latin America. TRG rehabilitates contaminated real estate. Ed is President of TRG Mexico S de RL based in Mexico City and serves on other corporate Boards.
Ed participates on the University of Southern California's (USC) School of Engineering Board of Councilors. He is an adjunct faculty member who teaches a highly rated accounting/finance class in the Civil/Environmental Engineering Department. Ed also serves on the Construction Board of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, one of the fastest growing communities in the USA. He recently wrapped up his financial advisory participation in a venture capital fund called the "North American Environmental Fund" managed by Ventana that invested in 16 emerging "cross-border" companies.
Ed is fluent in Spanish. He has had European, Latin American and Middle Eastern business experience.
Ed received his BS in Civil Engineering from the USC, an MS in Civil Engineering from the University of Houston and an MBA from Harvard University. He is a Registered Professional Civil Engineer.
Ed has been involved in aquatics for more than 40 years, is an avid Masters swimmer and loves SCUBA diving.
Ed volunteers as a development youth water polo coach. He has significant club and zone management experience, although he resigned any position that would have raised conflict of interest issues upon joining the Board of USAWP. All three of Ed’s children have been members of USA Water Polo. He and his wife of nearly 30 years, Karin, reside in North Tustin, California.
William Smith
Director
William Smith is the President and CEO of Renaissance Capital LLC, the global leader in IPO research and indexing. Its clients have included numerous major financial institutions (e.g. Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan) and over 16 million individual investors. Renaissance Capital runs the FTSE Renaissance IPO Composite Index with its partner FTSE. FTSE is jointly owned by the Financial Times of London and the London Stock Exchange. Renaissance also manages of the IPO Plus Fund (symbol: IPOSX), the only publicly traded mutual fund that focuses on the Initial Public Offering market.
Bill is a frequent guest speaker on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and is quoted in numerous financial publications such as Barron’s, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal. In 2000 he was featured on the cover of Worth Magazine in an article entitled the “Secrets of the IPO King”. Bill spent many years on Wall Street as a senior investment banker at Kidder Peabody and Bear Stearns. In addition, for over a decade he was a management consultant at Booz Allen and Touche Ross focusing on long range strategic planning, operational restructurings and turnarounds for companies in over 20 different industries.
He is the author of two books, “IPOs for Everyone”, published by John Wiley & Sons and “Strategic Growth Through Mergers & Acquisitions” published by Prentice Hall in the U.S. and Japan.
Bill has been involved with water polo for over 30 years as an athlete and as an age-group, high school, collegiate and assistant USA Cadet National Team coach. He established the first Ivy League Water Polo Championship and is on the Board of University of Pennsylvania Water Polo. Currently, he volunteers his time as Head Water Polo Coach for the Brunswick School and club team Greenwich Aquatics, both based in Greenwich Connecticut. He was a water polo coach at Villanova University, Indiana University, University of Pennsylvania and many Zone and Youth development programs.
Bill has an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Villanova University. He is the father of two children, a son who plays water polo for Stanford University and a daughter who plays for Harvard College.
Bob Sternfels
Director – Independent
Bob Sternfels is familiar to water polo as he played at his Alma Mater
Stanford University and brings strong ties from the Bay Area. A senior
partner for McKinsey and Company, a leading global consulting firm, Bob
has been with the group for over a decade and has helped to launch an
office in South Africa while also working with clients around the
globe. The leader in private equity practice, Bob has helped oversee a
strategic growth plan with USA Water Polo CEO Christopher Ramsey. He
was a Rhodes Scholar and earned an MA in politics, philosophy, and
economics from Oxford.