Vaden Burns Hargis was named President of Oklahoma State
University in Dec 2007 taking office March 10, 2008. His compensation was set
at $350,000 annually plus a $20,000 annual car allowance and rumored memberships in two exclusive
country clubs with golf courses.
In Sept 2008 Hargis was named to the Board of Chesapeake
Energy Co. His compensation in 2011 was $565,465 and he owned 56,441 shares of Chesapeake
stock.
In their 2012 Stockholders meeting, Hargis received only
26% of the votes in favor of his retention on the board. This was the lowest total vote ever received by a
sitting Board Member of a Fortune 500 Company. What makes this so egregious
is that Mr. Hargis is trained as an accountant and a Lawyer and a major part of
his duties as a board member was oversight the financial operations of the
executive leadership. The very things
that Aubrey McClendon is being investigated for are clearly in Mr. Hargis arena
of expertise. The stockholders smelled a rat.
QUESTION:
Since Vaden Burns Hargis was a full time employee of the
State of Oklahoma, by whose authority did he accept a part time job on Chesapeake’s
Board? When I worked for a major oil company I was considered to be a
professional and therefore not hourly. This meant that I was not available to
work in my “off” hours for another company and indeed was forbidden to do so.
How does President Hargis pull this off.
ANALYSIS:
This is a great example of “good-ole-boy” politics at
work. I doubt that Oklahoma State benefited much from Mr. Hargis’ expertise. He
was a figure head and an expensive one. The tuition increases under him have
been painful and I doubt he spent any sleepless nights trying to avoid
them. This is a “TIP OF THE ICEBERG” story
and is only one of the many reasons that college tuition has become
ridiculously expensive
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