National Dewan E-News #11
February, 2012
From the National Committee

New Executive Director: After an extensive process, Oswald Norton has been selected to become the Executive Director for Subud USA beginning May 15. The national committee and board received five outstanding applications for the position. Three independent evaluators, who were all either former committee or board members, reviewed the paper applications (resumes, proposals, time lines, and letters of reference). They used a rating form for each of the candidates. Simultaneously, the members of the national committee interviewed each of the five candidates, taking turns asking eleven questions and rating their responses. The candidates’ composite scores from the paper and interview ratings along with a summary of each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses were then given to the voting members of the board of directors. In a conference call (which included the national committee, six of the seven national helpers, and all but one of the regional chairpersons), the candidates’ qualifications were discussed and then all tested what qualities were needed in an executive director for Subud USA at this time and then how the qualities of the finalists matched the qualities needed. Finally, there was a vote.

Oswald Norton

From Oswald Norton: “I live in Bellevue, Washington with my wife Rayma and daughter Rosalind. I am currently a helper with the Greater Seattle group. My Subud experience includes group chair, zonal representative, group treasurer, co-chair Subud California Regional Congress and, most recently, co-presenting workshops on leadership at Menucha. My work life has been in three phases. The first was in the theater where I worked with artists in opera, mime and musical comedy worlds. The second and longest has been in IT sales and management where I  worked for Microtraffic Systems, The Moore Group, Branchflower Software, Microsoft,  Starbucks and Homegrocer.com on multi-year and multi-million dollar projects whose goals included improving processes and  procedures for organizations. The final phase (so far) of work life has been doing organizational development at Microsoft. My education includes training in  helping organizations thrive and grow stronger. I will bring these skills, experience and my passion for helping the Subud USA organization to the  position of executive director for SUSA which I now gratefully accept.”