John & Kathy Schuessler to Retire

  After six years at the helm of MUFON, Kathy and I have decided it is time to step down. As you all know, MUFON now has an announced Mission with Goals and Strategies aimed at keeping MUFON on track. And the organization is now guided by an excellent Business Board of Directors. MUFON is financially stable and funds are being allocated for special projects like the Pandora document scanning project. We have an outstanding new Director of Investigations that will implement a host of improvements in the investigations realm. Our MUFON UFO Journal edited by Dwight Connelly is receiving accolades from members all over the world.

  At the annual July meeting of the Business Board we discussed succession planning for key MUFON personnel. This was stimulated by my notification back in January that Kathy and I would like to retire by the end of 2006. It was clear that all board members were capable of running MUFON, but many of them were not in a position in their careers that they wanted to make the change right now. Finally, after thorough deliberation, the board concluded that my successor should be James Carrion of Bellvue, CO. This decision was made by examining the needs of MUFON, where our strategic plan was aiming to take the organization in the future and how well James'' background matched the MUFON needs. With James also living in Colorado, we can coordinate the hand-over of the International Director's job from me to James and the hand-over of the office operations from Kathy to Kristen Kennington by the end of 2006 with a major milestone occurring at the end of October when the headquarters office operation will shift from the Denver area to Bellvue, Colorado.

  I am not leaving MUFON and I will continue to be a member of the Business Board of Directors. I have served two three-year terms as International Director and have accomplished many of the goals I personally had for MUFON. That made the year 2006 a good time to make the change. Further details of the change may be found in the article by Dwight Connelly in the July issue of the MUFON UFO Journal.

New Office Contact Information

   Effective November 1, 2006 , MUFON will be operating from Bellvue, Colorado. The address will be: Mutual UFO Network, Inc., Post Office Box 279, Bellvue, CO 80512-0279. Phone: 970-221-1836 (221-1UFO). FAX: 970-221-1209.