Kent Whealy responds to SSE board’s letter

The conversation continues. Kent has once again sent another letter to all listed members of the Seed Savers Exchange, SSE. In this letter he once again tries to clarify his position and the call for a truce. At this point it is apparent that the disagreement between Mr. Whealy and the board are causing undo stress on the organization he founded. He outlines 3 points at the end of the letter as conditions of this truce. Hopefully for both sides, this separation can come to a conclusion.

I feel deeply for Kent and how this all has transpired. I also feel concern over an organization that I have come to love. I hope that SSE can overcome this current obstacle and I hope that Kent is given the respect and benefits deserving of the man that created this wonderful organization.

Kent Whealy refers to a couple of new documents in his response. These can be found on the Seed Savers web site.
Letter from Diane Ott Whealy
Letter from Advisors

Here is the letter in its entirety. It has been slightly reformatted for easier readability. No content has been altered.

February 4, 2008
To the Listed Members of the Seed Savers Exchange

Dear Friends,
First of all, I want to sincerely thank all of SSE’s members and friends for the amazing avalanche of support (hundreds of e-mails, letters and phone calls) that I’ve received during the last couple of weeks. After what I’ve just been through, all of your messages have been deeply gratifying and heart-warming for me, and I want to thank each and every one of you for your kind words of appreciation and support. Your messages have touched me deeply. Thanks to all of you.

SSE’s Board of Directors will never be able to justify how I was treated, nor are they making any attempt to do so. Instead (in my opinion), there has been a constant stream of two-faced rhetoric and outright lies coming from the board’s public announcements to SSE’s members and also in letters that SSE’s members will never see. Just one example is the board’s recent letter to SSE’s private foundation donors that talks about my “…..desire/plan to take over the organization by somehow installing a new Board of Directors made up of himself and Advisors…..” (I thought I made it clear in my previous letter that, “I do not want to come back as SSE’s Executive Director.”) The board’s letter goes on to say “…..what is happening may be a natural occurrence in the evolution of organizations like SSE…..” (No, what is happening is the result of the board’s misguided actions and incredibly poor judgment.) Another example of an outright lie in a recent board letter is, “Kent was not asked to remain silent about his employment at SSE” while the cover letter from SSE’s lawyer that came with that letter is instructing me that I better not do it again.

SSE’s board is also attempting to rewrite SSE’s history, as is clearly shown by the assertions in Diane Ott Whealy’s recent letter, “As co-founder of the Seed Savers Exchange, I have been involved with the day-to-day operations every day since 1975” and also “I will never have any regrets about my decision to create and nurture SSE….” My remembrances of that period are quite different. Diane Ott Whealy’s first real involvement was in 1981 (six years after I founded Seed Savers), when the first Campout Convention was held, and when I listed her and my mother as the other two original board members of the nonprofit organization I was incorporating. By that time I had put out six SSE yearbooks, completed the first of three years work compiling the original Garden Seed Inventory, received SSE’s first two grants, took on John Withee’s bean collection (1,186 varieties he collected in the Northeast over 14 years), and gave my very first speech at the “Seed Banks Serving People Conference” in Tucson (in which I first used the term “heirloom vegetable varieties”). Look, I don’t care if Diane wants to call herself “SSE’s co-founder” (she did put up with me funning SSE out of our home for that first decade), but I should rightfully be recognized as SSE’s founder. Diane was a stay-at-home mom (which I deeply valued), but this rewriting of SSE’s history and the accomplishments of my life’s work must stop right now.

During these last two weeks, many of you have asked about Diane Ott Whealy’s involvement, because what has happened is difficult to understand without that piece of the puzzle. For Diane Ott Whealy (in my opinion) these last four years since the divorce have been unceasing attempts to win over family, friends, staff, and now the board. I have refused to play those games at all, but have taken a terrible beating for not playing. During those four years, we have both continued to work in the same office which has been difficult for me and SSE’s staff and board. Amy Goldman, Neil Hamilton and Deborah Madison have all bought into Diane Ott Whealy’s bogus grievances (in my opinion), which should never have been allowed to affect any of the decisions of SSE’s board. Instead, I was severely reprimanded at one board meeting (after Diane vented her grievances privately to board members the night before) without any of the board so much as asking me what was really going on. Just one other example of how the board has been played – shortly before I was fired Amy Goldman pointedly questioned me in an e-mail (to SSE’s entire board) about Diane Ott Whealy’s ridiculous claim that I was “logging in SSE’s orchard” (which Diane already knew wasn’t true). Although Diane Ott Whealy’s actions have contributed greatly to creating this current situation, I don’t think she even realizes the damage she has done to Seed Savers and its future.