Vernon Delpesce, president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Des Moines during a period that saw it double membership and expand its footprint across the metro, resigned effective today.

Wade Riedinger, senior vice president and chief operation officer, was appointed acting president and CEO. The YMCA of Greater Des Moines will work with the YMCA of the USA and the Hamilton Group on a national search for a new president and CEO, according to a release announcing Delpesce’s resignation.

Delpesce’s resignation comes at a time when the operation has come under criticism for its failure to complete the conversion of the former Polk County Convention Center at Fifth and Grand avenues to a full-service, upscale YMCA facility by constructing a 50-meter, Olympic-sized swimming pool that would draw top-level swimming competitions and attract more visitors to the city.

However, Delpesce’s resignation also comes at a time when some board members and community leaders believe it is time to move from growth mode to one of sustaining a big-budget operation.

“Vernon has led the YMCA through substantial growth, and we thank him for his many years of dedicated service to the association,” Clarence Hudson, YMCA of Greater Des Moines board chair,” said in the release.

In addition, “The board reaffirmed its commitment to move forward with fundraising goals and expansion plans in the Greater Des Moines area and will continue working with former YMCA board Chair Jim Cownie to lead the fundraising effort with the support of the board.”

That fundraising effort was launched because of a shortfall in financing for the swimming pool at the Wellmark YMCA at the site of the former convention center.

Delpesce and others on the board, led by board member Tom Stanberry, had hoped to secure $6.5 million in federal new market tax credits as well as $1 million in state brownfield funds to help finance the construction of the pool after a fundraising effort led by Cownie and businessman Bill Knapp garnered an initial $10 million in commitments, including $1 million each from Cownie, Knapp, Principal Financial Group Inc., MidAmerican Energy Co. and Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino.

The federal tax credits were to be used to leverage additional funding under the Vision Iowa program.

Those efforts failed, as did a later attempt to obtain financing under another federal EB-5 program that grants permanent visas to wealthy internationals who contribute $500,000 to $1 million to economic development programs in the United States.

Cownie then launched a second round of fundraising, again with Knapp and Knapp Properties Inc. President and CEO Gerry Neugent.

Cownie praised Delpesce today, in particular his early role in raising funds for the Wellmark YMCA and swimming pool and his dedication to creating the “world class” facility in downtown Des Moines.

“Vernon did a good job and it’s too bad we’re in this situation,” Cownie said.

Cownie has launched a six-pronged attack to raising additional funds to build the pool that has been based in part on returning to donors who pledged at least $50,000 during the first effort and asking them to add an additional year of funding to their pledges, essentially adding 20 percent to the initial commitment.

However, there other key elements that must be met, Cownie said.

In the last two weeks, an additional $3.7 million has been committed, including a $2 million pledge by a Greater Des Moines company that Cownie would not identify.

Cownie also plans to ask Polk County, the city of Des Moines and the state of Iowa to participate in the project. Finally, the YMCA needs to extend the amortization of its long-term debt, with West Bank being the principal lender in that package. Extending the amortization schedule will add an additional $4 million to the swimming pool fund.

In addition, the YMCA has undergone an evaluation of its profit and loss statement, balance sheet and 10-year pro forma to make by consulting firm RSM US LLP to make certain that it can sustain a revised payment schedule of its debt and maintain a high level of operations.

The conversion of the convention center into the Wellmark YMCA was part of downtown property swap that was engineered by Knapp. Part of that deal opened up the former site of the YMCA downtown for future development.

“This little interruption is a very small part of a much larger and positive thing,” Cownie said.

 

Delpesce was named president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Des Moines in 2002. He has worked as either a part-time or full-time YMCA employee since 1974, working first in Houston. He was national field coordinator for the YMCA of the USA in Columbus, Ohio, before becoming chief operating officer in Toledo, Ohio, where he worked when he accepted the Greater Des Moines position.