Posted on 10/30/2014 4:29:21 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
MADISON, Wis. – Another high-ranking Trek Bicycle Corp. executive on Thursday bolstered claims that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke was fired by the global bicycle firm launched by her father nearly 40 years ago.
Until this week, Burke claimed her success at Trek was evidence she ought to unseat Republican incumbent Gov. Scott Walker in next week’s election.
Wisconsin Reporter revealed Tuesday that Burke’s family terminated her in 1993, following her disastrous performance in the company’s European business unit, according to multiple former Trek executives and employees.
Burke responded Wednesday to the allegations by clarifying that her position was “eliminated” because of her success in Europe.
Asked about her departure, Burke told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “The truth is that after getting five additional offices up and running and managing seven operations, we decided to restructure and there was no need for my position and two of the people reporting to me could directly report to people in the United States,” she said. “I was part of that decision to restructure and did that and then decided to leave.”
However, another former Trek executive, who worked at the Waterloo-based company for six years during the early 1990s, says now that Burke’s contention that her position as director of European Operations was eliminated following a company “reorganization” isn’t true.
“It’s a bald-faced lie,” said the former Trek official, who, like other former employees, spoke to Wisconsin Reporter on condition of anonymity. “She was tossed out.”
The executive on Thursday confirmed the accounts of multiple Trek employees, including the company’s past president, Tom Albers, who told the Associated Press and other news outlets that Burke was fired because she “just didn’t work out. We were losing money.”
The former executive who spoke with Wisconsin Reporter Thursday confirmed those accounts. He recalled a dinner with Burke in Amsterdam, where Burke had decided to move Trek’s European headquarters from Frankfurt. At the time, he told Wisconsin Reporter, he didn’t know that Albers was sent over to take a closer look at the operation, which included a comprehensive, detailed review Burke’s management and performance.
“When the bill came, she says, ‘I have a lot of people looking at my financials right now. Could you pick up the bill?’ And I picked up the bill. That was a little strange,” he said.
The source said it was “common knowledge” among executives and employees that John Burke had fired his sister because “she lost money for us, and she had to make apologies for it.”
Describing himself as non-political, the source said he was driven to speak out following the Burkes’ attacks on Mary Burke’s former colleagues. He described Albers as “as a good guy … as honest as the day is long,” and said Albers isn’t out for any political vendetta.
“But what (Mary Burke) said is a bold-faced lie,” the source concluded. “If that’s the type of politician we want today, then we will have to accept that and say they are going to lie to us.”
Sources earlier this week told Wisconsin Reporter that Burke’s brother, John Burke, now Trek CEO, had to fire his sister in 1993 following steep overseas financial losses and plummeting morale among Burke’s European sales staff.
The sales team threatened to quit if Burke was not removed from her position as director of European Operations, Gary Ellerman, who served as Trek’s human resources director for 12 years, first told Wisconsin Reporter.
The newest source, the former executive who spoke with Wisconsin Reporter Thursday, said Ellerman’s account is “dead on, on target,” despite Burke family criticism of Ellerman as a partisan because of his role as chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party.
The former executive said he was privy to the “horror stories” from Trek’s financial chiefs at the time.
“There was no accounting for anything,” he said of Burke and her division. “Her sales were excessively below forecast.”
Burke and her campaign have a different take.
“It’s ridiculous,” Burke told the AP of the claims she was fired. “It’s completely false.”
The Burke campaign, as well as Trek, has not returned several phone calls from Wisconsin Reporter seeking comment. A privately held company, Trek does not release detailed financial information.
John Burke, who was Trek’s vice president of sales and marketing when his sister led European operations from 1990 to 1993, told other media outlets that his sister did a bang-up job in Europe, increasing sales dramatically, from $3 million to $50 million. He told the AP that he did not have detailed financial records from that far back, but there was one year where the company had a loss.
Another former manager said it was unlikely that Trek does not still have such critical financial data.
“They keep all that stuff. Their accountants are very anal about that,” another former Trek manager during Burke’s tenure told Wisconsin Reporter. That same source said the sales figures were nowhere near what the Burke family has claimed and that Trek’s operation in Germany “was gushing blood and it would take profitability from everywhere else” under Mary Burke’s supervision.
The manager said Burke was made to return to Wisconsin and apologize to a group of about 35 Trek executives and salespeople for her treatment of employees and for the plummeting European bottom line.
I own a Trek Mountaintrack 800.
Nice bike, a little too lightweight though for a mountainbike.
It’s a chromoly frame.
So, slight changes in your seating sends the thing flyyyyyying.
Burke was about as competent as a cross eyed prostitute on lsd and Quaaludes.
Lol. I do appreciate your humble candor. Been there. Done that.
What is the local meme for reasons to hate scott walker? Wisconsin is the model of state government improvement. Employment, financial position, etc. What are they claiming as his faults?
wow
she’s still running commercials that lie about her business success at trek and creating jobs.
Well, surprise, surprise, surprise: yet another lying, incompentant, scoundrel democrat.
The D party is a criminal organization attracting every idiot and sociopath in this country.
Love their ID’ing the former execs as “conservative” kinda the Madison equivalent of ‘pedophile,’ or something.
Hahaha! “Conservative Ex-Execs”!? They just have no idea how stupid they look.
I won one in a contest once. I gave it to a niece. It was an entry level model. W was photographed riding one on his mountain bike rides while President.
It rides real nice.
I had to grab those horse shoe shaped “brake boosters” to keep the forks from flexing.
It being a light chromoly frame, the direct pull brakes visibly flexed the forks.
:(
In 1982 I heard about Trek and rode my custom Woodrup touring bicycle from Madison to their factory. I just sort of showed up, expecting there might be some sort of organized tour. The folks at the front desk were surprised that anyone would want a tour, and told me I could wander through the plant if I promised to stay away from anything dangerous. At that time it was basically a metal shed (”pole barn” might be an appropriate description), with a motley crew of frame welders and painters here and there.
They really made something out of it, and interviews with her father seem to indicate he thinks it was marketing and endorsements (with Lance Armstrong) that really leveraged them into significant success.
Her father accomplished something. She went along for the ride, partway, like children of successful entrepreneurs often do.
No matter what the truth of her involvement at Trek was, she is not a leader, she is not made of the material of which a good Governor is made.
Scott Walker will beat her like a rented car.
There is also the same type of uncontested “meme” pervasive in Florida, regarding Rick Scott.
I bought a Trek competition mountain bike back in 1989 or 1990. The darned thing is almost indestructible and I still own it today. I liked it so much I bought my wife a Trek crossover type bike and she also uses it to this day.
That would be disturbing
Now I have a qualifier - they must be pro-life and successful at running a business.
Yes, I got one about 12 years ago. It is a great ride.
Good qualifier. I, for example, am not a business man... and I can prove it. :)
Incompetent and corrupt are Bolshecrat virtues.
I think that a person who has only sold newspapers as a kid for three months in order to buy a baseball mitt would have more business knowledge than any demoncrap in Congress right now or ever.
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