2006 SILVA AWARD WINNER ANNOUNCED

At the Annual General Meeting of the United States Orienteering Federation (USOF), held on August 19th in Buena Vista, Colorado, President Chuck Ferguson announced the winner of the 2006 Silva Award. The Silva Award, the USOF's highest volunteer honor, is given for outstanding service to the sport of orienteering in the United States during the previous five years. This year's winner is Vladimir Gusiatnikov.

It is hard to find anyone who is single-handedly responsible for more A-meet starts that otherwise would not have happened (both recreational and competitive), at his own time and expense, than Vladimir.

Specifically, Vladimir has taken the lead in organizing A-meets with clubs that otherwise would have difficulty holding them due to shortages of personnel and/or technical resources.  These have been done as 50/50 fundraisers with the US Team and the host club, allowing the US Team to have some of its strongest finances in years to fund WOC competition and other initiatives, and generating revenue that the club otherwise would not have obtained.

While these have been billed as team fundraisers, most of the competitors are not elite WOC orienteers, but local, recreational, JROTC, etc.  These runners have benefited by exposure to the Team at these meets, training by team members, etc.—all opportunities that would not be possible without Vladimir’s initiative.

Besides the benefits, the thing that makes Vladimir’s initiative so exceptional and worthy of recognition is the personal time and expense he puts into this effort.  Vladimir lives in the Bay Area of California, but in these instances (which have been far from California) he flies to the meet site beforehand on his own time and money, camps near the map to perform and facilitate technical work for the meet, etc.  Vladimir is quality oriented with these meets; for example, taking more time than most to make sure of the map print quality, etc.  He has the technical skill to do things right, the quality orientation to want to do things right, and the personal dedication to the sport to make sure these things happen.

And into the future, he has ‘07 and ‘08 meets in the queue under the same model.

Vladimir has also made other contributions to advance orienteering in the US. He

• set courses for at least 7 A-meet days, and other volunteerism for OCIN and BAOC,
• almost single-handedly keeps USOF conscious of, and executes, WRE races,
• works as US team administrator,
• has organized trips to Jukola, which has served as a good way to expand awareness of the O world outside the US, and
• offers a plethora of ideas, opinions, and proposals of how to improve O performance of USOF members.

The selection of the Silva Award winner is made by the USOF's Executive Committee, which is comprised of the Federation's President, five Vice-Presidents, and Secretary. Their selection is made from among the nominations received by the USOF's Awards Committee, which administers this awards program for the USOF.

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