ORIGINAL: J_R
Carl is the Director of the Special Services Department. His boss is the ED. The ED, and not the EC, is charged with running the AMA. As such, Carl has the power to make some decisions about the running of the AMA. Setting policy is another matter, supposed to be left to the EC. In the past, some of the relationships became fuzzy. I no longer believe that to be the case. I can not see, regardless of the time reference, that Carl set policy, in this instance.
Having said that, and I say this only somewhat tonuge in cheek, Carl would, in my opinion, left to his own devices, never allow any new aircraft within 10,000 feet of anyone or anything not absolutely necessary for a first flight.
Carl is one of very few individuals that have an understanding of the AMA's insurance policy. Not to have him on the safety committee could be a disaster. The safety committee has no power. It can make recommendations to the EC. I have a hard time seeing that sitting on a powerless committee is a conflict of interest, by any definition. He gets no vote in the EC.
Man, you've sharpened tha pencil to a very fine point. You know good and well the ED does not run AMA in such matters as safety and what we are discussing here. Yes, I know Carl knows the insurance like nobody else. Nobody else has even seen the policy.
The safety committee makes recommendations to the EC. The Special Services Department makes recommendations to the EC. Those recommendaions don't stand a chance of being weighted equally by the EC when the head of the SSD is the also the only full-time member of the SC. Just MHO, you don't have to agree with my view that it is a conflict of interest.
Back to the topic of discussion, the weirdly contrived policy of having the CD leave the site of the event when something might happen that AMA is skeptical of has one purpose and one purpose only: to distance AMA from liability risk that may arise if they were exposed to a lawsuit. As there has been much confusion over this, I mean a lawsuit against AMA directly, the organization that sanctions the event, as opposed to some party that AMA is the insurance agent for. It is not in the best interest of safety, and may well be counterproductive to safety. As such, it carrys the stamp of Carl Maroney the insurance guru, not Carl Maroney who has a seat on the safety committee.
Abel