Wednesday, December 5, 2018

The 2017 ACS Form 990

This was 2017's form 990. (Here are the other ones: 2016, 2015 and 2014.)

ACS executive director Thomas Connelly made $893,157 in 2016. Looks like he made $991,787 in 2017. 10.9% increase, must have been a good year.


11 comments:

  1. Isn't the ACS struggling to attract and retain members outside of academia? Sounds to me like the 10% raise was his buddies on the board doing him a personal favor, rather than a reward for exceptional performance. A 10% raise for someone staying in the same position is pretty much unheard of anywhere I've worked, even for outstanding performance.

    I'm guessing the members of this so-called professional association had no say whatsoever in this.

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    1. Hard to say what he is being judged on. I suspect revenue out of the publications division is their first, second and third priority.

      I don't actually keep track of that (I should.

      Regarding compensation, the ACS Board of Directors is the group of people that is directly elected by members that probably has the say over accepting the recommendations of (I believe) the compensation committee.

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    2. I didn't realize the members actually could vote on board members. The elected ACS President has about as much real power as the Queen of England.

      Good point about publication revenue - his real job is to manage a journal publisher, and the professional society part is for appearance's sake and tax purposes. I'd be surprised if publication revenue is going up though, between the Internet facilitating copyright violations and the shrinking number of big chemical and pharma companies that can afford subscriptions.

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  2. I'm certainly glad I've not payed ACS dues for many years. In fact, when my employer stopped paying them for me.

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    1. Seems short-sighted by your employer. They can pay my $180 dues, or they can watch as over the course of a year I download a dozen or so articles in ACS journals we don't subscribe to at $30-40 a pop.

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  3. Ridiculous salaries and no complaints from the community. Chemjobbrer you rock.

    Learning the salary of UNESCO CEO was my biggest disappointment, but this can race with it.

    I am curious though, why you just bring up CEO? President makes even more.

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    1. Because the CEO is the real "president." The ACS President is a member-elected figurehead with no real power; and I'm pretty sure it's an unpaid volunteer position.

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    2. KT it says the president took home over $1m from the organization.

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    3. Ah, I think I know the source of the misunderstanding:

      Manuel Guzman is the President of CAS, the Chemical Abstract Services. He made over $1M.
      The person that we call "ACS president" is currently (ending his term) Peter Dorhout. Professor Dorhout made $0.
      Thomas Connelly is the ACS Executive Director and CEO; he made just under $1M.

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    4. Thanks for clearing that up. Which makes me curious, why does the leader of CAS get paid more than the leader of ACS, when CAS is a division of the ACS? Regardless, in the realm of CEO salaries something under $1m strikes me as very low.

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  4. It is telling that the ACS Director is not judged on ACS membership numbers, and it isn't even a criteria that gets factored in for job performance. I found that surprising but this was vehemently stated by someone involved in the process and thus would know. Membership is indeed the tail to the publishing activities.

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20