Breaking news: Gee resigns from Massey board
Massey Energy Co. has announced that E. Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State University, has resigned from the coal company’s board of directors. The move comes as Gee faced growing pressure from environmentalists (and from OSU students) to break his ties with the controversial coal giant.
According to the Massey release, Gee said this in a letter to Massey CEO Don Blankenship:
My service on the Massey Board has provided me with a unique perspective to learn the problems and opportunities facing the nation’s energy sector. It has also given me the opportunity to work with people, both within the company, and on the Board, whom I appreciate and admire.
Blankenship responded:
…That Gee brought an important quality to the Massey board that is made up of a significant cross section of opinions on the important issues facing American energy producers today. “Coal is an essential, abundant American resource that keeps the national power grid humming,” Blankenship said. “We will certainly miss Gordon, who was a dynamic force in the free and open debate at our board meetings on our role as a major American energy force and how we can serve our nation.”
I’ve written before (see here and here) about efforts to urge Gee to quit the Massey board post that paid him more than $200,000 a year.  There was also an editorial just yesterday in the Toledo Blade that concluded:
There’s no question but that Mr. Gee talks the talk on environmental issues. But the public face of OSU should walk the walk as well. Mr. Gee should either tell Ohioans what he has done in eight years on the board to clean up Massey’s abysmal environmental record, or he should resign his seat on the board in protest of that record.
Ohio Citizen Action was among the groups pressuring Gee, and the OSU student newspaper, The Lantern, had this great interview in which Gee said:
“I think if you take a look at Massey’s record, it has one of the best environmental records in the country.â€
10 comments
Sounds like something a Buckeye would do. Anything to hamper WVU’s football program.
Haha, that’s great! It worked!
Though it would have been nice if he had just coughed up that money…
Massey has one of the best environmental records in the country? How can President Gee possibly say that? If I was an Ohio State University student, faculty or alumni, I would want to ask him more about that statement. At any rate, he has resigned so this is very good news.
If I were an OSU student, I would ask him to resign as president.
Few months ago the utilities in NC vowed not to use coal from MTR mines. Now Ohio has declared war on coal.
I wonder how long it will take for these people to sing another tune when their electric bills go up 50-75% because of higher fuel costs.
Adam, the point is that electricity produced from coal, and moreover, MTR coal, is only cheap on the surface. The hidden costs are far greater. It *should* be much more expensive that it is. Hopefully expense will force Americans to realize that their convenience-driven lifestyle is not sustainable. Energy conservation may have to be beaten into some people.
Now maybe Mr. Gee will be able to sleep at night. David Cooper’s comment is just silly, Massey’s determination to destroy Appalachia with their destructive Mountain Top Removal practices is simply criminal.
Sorry Dave, didn’t see the question mark the first time, “You are spot on!”
Dr. Gordon Gee is a great college president and, no doubt, a great asset for a corporate board. His nearly decade-long service for Massey Energy was essentially unquestioned until recently.
Thankfully, he did the right thing and removed himself from the Massey board. It’s very unfortunate that it took so much pressure for that to happen.
This needs to be a very loud and clear message for public officials — especially non-elected ones — that all their actions and associations have to be reflective of public good, not of personal interest and/or self profiteering.
One aspect of this that doesnt get mentioned is that coal-burning utility plants are one of the leading causes of a global environmental disaster: climate change. And for anyone who doesnt believe that, the National Academy of Sciences does, and that is the most respected scientific body in the world. Gee called himself a proponent of renewable energy and environmental protection. Massey not only contributes to climate change, it has a history that’s very easy to look up, and it is an ugly history. Gee’s tenure was an embarrassment to the university and his resignation was long past due.
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