USOC Baton Likely to Be Given to Blake

Norman P. Blake Jr., a businessman with a reputation as a corporate turnaround artist, has emerged as the leading candidate for the U.S. Olympic Committee’s new post of chief executive officer.

Blake, 58, who engineered a turnaround in the 1990s at USF&G;, a Baltimore insurer and financial services provider, could be named to the USOC post at a meeting beginning Friday in Chicago.

Under a sweeping management reform plan likely to be voted in at that meeting, the USOC--long known for its often-chaotic volunteer structure--would take on more corporate attributes and Blake would become a corporate-style CEO, with day-to-day control.

USOC officials said that he was “a leading candidate.”

Several sources confirmed that Blake is the leading contender, and one said, “I would be surprised if the lead candidate weren’t confirmed.”

Blake did not return a call to his home.

The selection of a CEO--as well as the expected management overhaul also on the agenda--will cap a turbulent few months for the USOC, which governs Olympic and amateur sports in the United States.

In the wake of the scandal tied to Salt Lake City’s winning bid for the 2002 Winter Games, two reports said the USOC needed to do a better job of maintaining oversight and accountability. The USOC has since taken steps to address those issues.

In addition, a consultant produced yet another report stating the obvious: the USOC, a $120-million-per-year operation, had outgrown a volunteer-driven structure.

The management overhaul the consultant recommended would give the CEO the powers of current executive director Dick Schultz, who is retiring, as well as some of the duties of USOC president Bill Hybl. Hybl plans to step down later this year.

Blake, who attended college and graduate school at Purdue, began his career at General Electric.

After a stint at a Michigan financial services company called Top Inc., he returned to GE and from 1981 to 1984 served as executive vice president of financing operations.

From 1984 to 1990, he was chairman and CEO of Heller International Corp. in Chicago, a subsidiary of Fuji Bank.

In 1990, he took over at USF&G;, which was near bankruptcy. He embarked on an aggressive restructuring campaign, cutting costs and slashing the work force by about 30%.

He left eight years later, after taking the company to profitable growth in revenue and earnings. Another insurer, the St. Paul Companies, bought USF&G; in 1998 for $3.5 billion.

Blake moved on to the Memphis-based hotel chain Promus, the parent company of Doubletree, Embassy Suites and others. Last September, Hilton Hotels Corp. bought Promus for $3.04 billion.