TAKE BACK THE NWTF - RESPONSE TO MANAGEMENT
A strange message has been sent by NWTF’s newly appointed CEO, George Thornton, to its State Chapter Presidents. He states that a website has been launched by a few “dissidents”.
He is evidently disturbed by our website, informing the NWTF membership of the facts concerning the decimation of the NWTF Management Team, the firing without notice of Carl Brown and Dick Rosenlieb and the resignation of Rob Keck. Rob had repeatedly warned that he would resign if any substantial part of his Management Team was terminated.
Since those events, only sparse information has been forthcoming from our national headquarters in Edgefield about what has happened. Most significantly, no rational explanation has been provided for why the most successful and effective management team in conservation history was destroyed. The members of the National Wild Turkey Federation have a right to know what has taken place. Evidently the group of NWTF directors hostile to Rob Keck and his management team do not want the NWTF membership to know what has happened. Our motivation in posting a detailed account of exactly what did happen to cause the decimation of the NWTF management group was to fill this void of information.
What we cannot explain to the NWTF membership is why these acts took place. Rob Keck, Carl Brown and Dick Rosenlieb played leading roles in one of the most successful efforts in conservation history - the magnificent restoration of the wild turkey. It would appear that the saying, “No good deed goes unpunished,” is true.
In his message, Mr. Thornton did not dispute the facts presented on our website concerning the recent history of the NWTF. This is just as well, since the site www.takebackthenwtf.com provides ample documentation for NWTF members to derive the truth for themselves.
Mr. Thornton alleges that this website is an attack on “NWTF volunteers, national board members and staff”. We have news for Mr. Thornton. We who are informing the NWTF membership by means of this website, are NWTF volunteers. We are all NWTF members. Most of us have put in a great many years of service to the NWTF. We have given generously of our time, our efforts and our financial contributions. As NWTF members, we rather assumed that Mr. Thornton works for us.
Mr. Thornton implies that we attack the NWTF staff. This is absolutely untrue. We have nothing but praise for the dedicated staff that he has inherited from Rob Keck and his managers. And with one final correction, we would advise him that we are definitely “more than a few.”