Updated 27 APR, 2:45 pm EDT, EdisonReport can confirm that Mark Lien will become a consultant to the IES.
EdisonReport has learned of a significant reorganization at IES. Your humble editor compared an IES staff list from a few months ago with today’s staff list and the following names are missing:
- Brian Liebel, Director of Standards
- Mark Lien, Industry Relations Manager
- Alex Baker, Manager of Government Affairs
- Dawn De Grazio, Technical Editor
- Jennifer Jacques, Director of Member Services
- Nikkia Thompson, Member Engagement Coordinator
- Nikole Giglione, Marketing and Communications Coordinator
We do not know the status. Some could be laid off, some could have resigned and some could be consultants.
The above combined salary represents over $1.0M in W2 in salary alone (based on FY19 salaries.) When you add in benefits and expenses, it could approach a savings of $1.3M or more.
It does appear that the standards group was hit hard and LD+A appears unscathed. We know most of the people on the above list and they are big contributors to the industry. There is a certain amount of irony in the layoff. IES is a consensus organization and has not really been known for speed, but the layoff happened only a few hours ago and they have already updated their website. The only silver lining is perhaps we will see more speed-to-market from this leaner organization.
IES issued a formal statement late Monday. Read it here.
IES is a 501(c)3 organization, which means they file a Form 990 instead of a 1040. We reviewed their 2020 Form 990, which we believe is for FY 2019 and it shows loss of $3.5M. The revenue dropped from $5.8M in 2018 to $2.6M in 2019, which is attributable to LightFair. We do find it interesting that the Society also reported $894K loss in FY18. See the first pages of the 990 here.
Developing….