Flying is hard

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jbhtexas

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Oct 20, 2006
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Arlington, TX
So Leath is reimbursing the university $125/hour to use the university plane for his personal use when private companies charge $300/hour to use the same model of plane.

Leath informs Rastetter well after the accident occurs and Rastetter keeps it quiet.

This is wrong on so many levels.
Perhaps the private companies expect to make a profit when they charge to use the plane.

Doesn't the university get audited? If this has been going on for several years, it seems that somebody might have raised a red flag.
 

cloneswereall

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Aug 12, 2010
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Management of budgets, management of funding priorities, management of investments... ALL those things are key to both for-profit companies and ESPECIALLY non-profits. If you can't make sound decisions with your limited resources, you are doomed to fail.

I used to work for a non-profit museum and the folks that ran it took that to heart. It is no longer around. They had zero financial sense, zero budgeting acumen, zero ability to make resource decisions.
So like I said. Cut all academic programs that don't turn a profit. Then we can stop the ******* charade that people want education when they really want training. Those are two entirely different things.
 

Skidoosh

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May 27, 2012
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I know a former ISU staff member who was fired because she used the university vehicle she had checked out for the fall semester for a personal weekend trip. It was discovered because she got into a minor accident that weekend, and she was immediately terminated.

I get so disgusted when the same rules don't apply to those in leadership positions.

This is like, 85% of all leadership positions.
 
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cyclonestate

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May 4, 2009
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Perhaps the private companies expect to make a profit when they charge to use the plane.

Doesn't the university get audited? If this has been going on for several years, it seems that somebody might have raised a red flag.

Exactly. First of all, there is a law that prohibits the use use of public property for personal benefit, so he has broken the law to begin with.

Second, he has been paying less than 50% of normal market value when he's "reimbursing" the university. Must be difficult getting by on that $400,000+ per year salary.

What a pathetic example he sets for the rest of the university.
 

Skidoosh

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May 27, 2012
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If the university owns the plane then I see no problem with him renting it at cost. It's not being flown for profit (to the owner) so all he is doing is paying for maintenance and fuel most likely. Thats the least concerning thing about this issue.
 

SpokaneCY

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Apr 11, 2006
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Spokane, WA
So like I said. Cut all academic programs that don't turn a profit. Then we can stop the ******* charade that people want education when they really want training. Those are two entirely different things.

Does the graphics department at your company turn a profit? The university is a massive global business that happens to be not taxable. It doesn't mean you shouldn't run that massive global business without top-notch business acumen which I'm guessing may not be readily available in academia.
 

ExCyment

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Jan 8, 2013
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Crescent, IA
This is really a non-story to me. Pretty common for a pilot with his experience level to damage a plane. The damage based on cost is relatively minor for an aircraft. I would however expect that the university and its insurer would require at least a commercial pilot's license to fly a university owned plane. Changes need to be made to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
 

cloneswereall

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Does the graphics department at your company turn a profit? The university is a massive global business that happens to be not taxable. It doesn't mean you shouldn't run that massive global business without top-notch business acumen which I'm guessing may not be readily available in academia.

I'm going to ignore your first question because education is not a ******* business. There are positions already there for the concerns that people have with running things efficiently (CFOs and their entire departments) like that. You are working with a completely incorrect assumption that there is no oversight for fund appropriation at educational institutions. Putting someone to run an educational institution as if it were a business is a massively dumb idea because those people are already there.

You don't ask ask a financial adviser/banker/accountant to swoop in and tell the mechanic which of his employees are terrible at their jobs and what procedures he should use in order to improve his mechanic skills, do you?
 

wxman1

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Jul 2, 2008
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This is really a non-story to me. Pretty common for a pilot with his experience level to damage a plane. The damage based on cost is relatively minor for an aircraft. I would however expect that the university and its insurer would require at least a commercial pilot's license to fly a university owned plane. Changes need to be made to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

So a couple things. I agree that it is fairly minor. Especially for a plane that is valued at least $200k. However this is not fairly common. Does it happen? Definitely. If it went down the way he said it is in the "**** happens" category.

Most insurers will pretty much insure you for whatever you want so long as you have the appropriate ratings for the plane (high power in this case). As you get more experience in that type the cost will drop. A commercial license is not required in this case since he was using it to further business and not explicitly getting paid to fly. A private certificate is all he needs.
 
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Transient

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Apr 17, 2008
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This is really a non-story to me. Pretty common for a pilot with his experience level to damage a plane. The damage based on cost is relatively minor for an aircraft. I would however expect that the university and its insurer would require at least a commercial pilot's license to fly a university owned plane. Changes need to be made to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

I think the problem lies in that Warren Madden should have been told Leath did that, plus leath should have had a copilot with him, not sure if anything will come of this though...
 
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wxman1

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I think the problem lies in that Warren Madden should have been told Leath did that, plus leath should have had a copilot with him, not sure if anything will come of this though...
Why should he have had a copilot?
 

wxman1

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University rules, he should have notified Warren Madden personally, as he was in charge of that stuff himself, and according to the University he needs to fly with a Copilot and didnt..

I guess I missed that part of the article.
 

NWICY

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Sep 2, 2012
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If the university owns the plane then I see no problem with him renting it at cost. It's not being flown for profit (to the owner) so all he is doing is paying for maintenance and fuel most likely. Thats the least concerning thing about this issue.

Except he didn't pay for the maintenance after he crashed that *****.
 

Spam

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May 21, 2008
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Does the graphics department at your company turn a profit? The university is a massive global business that happens to be not taxable. It doesn't mean you shouldn't run that massive global business without top-notch business acumen which I'm guessing may not be readily available in academia.

A senior professor does not just wake up one day and become a university president. If university is a business, then the professor who is to become president would have several years of "business" experience-- as university vice president, provost, dean of an academic department, etc. A professor that lacks that administrative experience does not become university president.

Many things may be seen as businesses. Accounting firms and law firms, for example. Even religion. Does not mean that Bill Gates would make a good pope. An Accounting firm does not hire someone as CEO because he has decades of experience running a software firm. The head of that Accounting firm would typically be someone who has experience in some facet of Accounting.

Not sure why the head of an academic institution be any different. The best candidates would be those that come from an academic background, but who also have considerable experience in administrative positions in academia.