Mom's Red Cross "Restructure"

UPDATE: From Wikipedia:
"On November 27, the American Red Cross Board of Governors asked for and received the resignation of President and CEO Mark W. Everson, effective immediately. The Board acted quickly after learning that Mr. Everson engaged in a personal relationship with a subordinate employee. It concluded that the situation constituted poor judgment on Mr. Everson’s part and diminished his ability to lead the organization in the future.^[3]
Mr. Everson is married and has two children."

Mom got laid off from the Red Cross today. She was one of their senior editors, and had been there for almost 10 years. I was unclear what they meant by "Give Blood" until today. Maybe should have seen it coming from this story off the AP wire last month:

New Red Cross Chief Tackles Multiple Challenges
By David Crary, AP National Writer
Jul 3, 2007

"...after four years running the Internal Revenue Service, Mark Everson has at least one new advantage. "My 18-year-old daughter said, 'People will like you now,'" Everson observed with a smile Tuesday during an interview with The Associated Press."

I know a few people who won't like him, now or ever. Mark Everson's a Reagan & Bush-appointed lackey who made his millions as a VP of finance for Sky Chefs, a multi-billion dollar airline food supply company in Irving (near Siemens). So the guy in charge of feeding the poor got rich selling airplane food. (There has got to be a joke in there somewhere. Help me out here, people.)

Here's our 20/20 hindsight clue:

"Internally, Everson will have his hands full with management challenges. He said the Red Cross has an operational deficit (he didn't give figures) and is looking for ways to cut administrative costs at its Washington headquarters as it invests more money in disaster preparedness. He declined to say whether layoffs might be part of the needed restructuring which also will include efforts to standardize financial procedures among the charity's 760 chapters nationwide."

Four paragraphs later, we learn that Everson's annual salary is half a million dollars. Did I mention he's already a millionaire?

Exactly how much is the Red Cross saving with these layoffs? Pesos to tacos that figure is in the neighborhood of $500,000 a year.

(That last analogy is funny because Everson was behind Reagan's racist 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. And by "funny" I mean "splenetic.")

On the plus side, Mom's an excellent technical writer, and as of this post probably has another solid gig lined up.