Aaron Whaley named acting Executive Director of Seed Savers Exchange

“DeVault will wind down his duties at Seed Savers Exchange and transition the job to Aaron Whaley. Whaley has been named by the Board of Directors as Acting Executive Director and President…

Whaley is the son of Seed Savers Exchange co-founders Kent Whealy and Diane Ott Whealy. Whaley, 37, grew up at Seed Savers Exchange, and has worked at the
organization in a full-time professional capacity since 1996, primarily as head of the commercial seed sales operation. He has degrees in Biology and Public Communications from Luther College. With his wife and three young sons, he lives on a farm adjacent to Seed Savers Exchange, where the family gardens and raises chickens and Ancient White Park cattle.”

I must be incredibly pessimistic, but I find this odd on several different levels.

1. George DeVault, relocated his entire family from Pennsylvania less than two years ago to take the position and now is leaving because he is homesick. Seriously?!
2. With all of the problems between Kent Whealy and Seed Savers, they still chose his son… temporarily.
3. Why is a national search necessary? Aaron has worked for Seed Savers for years and was previously the Associate Director. It only seems logical for anyone outside of the SSE family loop to appoint him to the Director position and backfill his position.

I hope that this proves positive over the coming months, but I am concerned that SSE will waste money searching for a new Executive Director when an appropriate candidate seems to already be working for the organization. Furthermore, their track record doesn’t seem that great considering Mr. DeVault left after such a short amount of time. Somehow, I find it hard to believe that he left because he was homesick.