John Long, the chief executive officer of the U.S. Equestrian Federation, announced late last week the newest administrative step in the melding of USA Equestrian and the U.S. Equestrian Team, a process that began 18 months ago. In an effort to improve the federation\’s efficiency, an organizational realignment has divided the USEF\’s activities into two primary areas—sports programs and business administration/governance.

This realignment comes just ahead to the USEF Board of Directors\’ midyear meeting, on Tuesday, July 12, in Lexington, Ky. The directors will hear reports from the Competition Date Approval Task Force, the Hearing Committee Task Force, and the Rules Reorganization Task Force, three groups working to establish policies and rules to advance three of the federation\’s core responsibilities.

The organizational realignment of sports programs is designed to improve the staff\’s efficiency for both national and high-performance programs. The management of the international department in the Lexington, Ky., office will be eliminated, streamlining the staff and administration formerly required by dual functions in both Lexington and Gladstone, N.J. Jim Wolf, who works in Gladstone, is now the executive director for sports programs, reporting directly to Long. Wolf will have responsibility for all sports programs within the USEF. Karen Homer Brown, assistant executive director for national sports programs in the Lexington office, will now report to Wolf.

Show jumping, eventing and dressage will each have a discipline director to oversee all aspects of the sport. Each will have a national sports manager and a high-performance manager.

The remaining four FEI disciplines will be coordinated within a new department headed by Don Whittle, who joins the USEF from the U.S. Olympic Committee. As director of FEI disciplines and games preparation, Whittle, who has extensive experience in international team management, will also have responsibility for FEI servicing and will underpin Wolf in games preparation.

This realignment puts all sports programs within one part of the organization, while maintaining the unique requirements of the national and high-performance programs. An additional benefit is the creation of a pipeline for USEF staff career advancement and a pipeline for emerging new athletic talent for the elite teams.

On the business and governance side, Lori Rawls, the executive director in Lexington, will continue to direct administration, finance, member services, competition, regulation, and drugs and medication programs, also reporting directly to Long. These changes will allow Rawls to concentrate on administration and member services, which will be particularly important as the new competition-license initiative will require significant changes in existing administration procedures and processes.

John Strassburger, the Chronicle\’s editor, will be in Lexington for the midyear meeting and will file a brief report on Breaking News on Wednesday, July 13, along with a more in-depth report in the July 22 issue of the Chronicle.