The interim director of the Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission is one of three finalists being considered to fill the role permanently, along with a current parks department employee with a marketing background and a former Florida tourism official who has faced multiple disciplinary actions in two previous positions, including being fired from the most recent job listed on his resume.
Mike Maloney, who held the executive director position from 2011 to 2019 and took over as interim director last fall, had an executive session review with commissioners at the CAPC’s March 27 meeting, and is one of three candidates being interviewed.
According to discussions by commissioners during a workshop held before the March 27 meeting, commissioners Kolin Paulk and Bradley Tate-Greene will separately interview Maloney and two other applicants — Susan Luddy and John Pricher.
Paulk and Tate-Greene will then make a recommendation to the full commission, which will then decide the next steps in the process. Commissioners discussed plans to hold a special meeting at 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 10.
Luddy and Pricher were two candidates vetted and recommended by Staffmark, which was hired to assist in the search process. If the CAPC selects a candidate recommended by the agency, it would pay a fee of 12 percent of the position’s salary to the company.
“The practical look at this is Mike is the bar to beat,” commissioner Steve Holifield said at the workshop. “Is either one of these candidates you think will be better than Mike? If not, then that stops there.”
After being emailed resumes, commissioners discussed Luddy and Pricher briefly at the March 27 workshop, without naming the two applicants.
According to her resume, Luddy’s current positions include a part-time role for Eureka Springs Parks and Recreation doing “admin., marketing, events, community relations and operations,” and as a marketing consultant since 2016. Her background includes marketing and public relations positions at various companies since 2000. With the parks department, Luddy’s resume indicates she was an organizer for the Jamboreeka event held at Lake Leatherwood Park last July.
“A seasoned Marketing Communications and Public Relations leader and achiever with 20 years of experience in strategic communications planning, marketing and relationship building,” Luddy’s resume reads.
She got her bachelor’s degree in marketing from Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, N.H., and her masters in communications management from Simmons University in Boston, according to her resume.
Luddy, called “candidate one,” was mentioned to have applied for CAPC positions in the past, while Pricher, “candidate two,” was considered “incredibly impressive,” by Staffmark, commissioners were told.
“According to Staffmark, in their conversations they had a director specifically assigned just to our job description and vetting and making sure they had good candidates,” CAPC administrative manager Danyelle Harris told commissioners. “Candidate two was incredibly impressive to them, and in conversation, is willing to move here on their own dime, just married and looking to relocate.
“[He] has a very similar position, as you can tell on the resume, long standing at his current place, and they’re just ready to relocate if given the possibility to do so.”
It’s unclear when Pricher’s resume was submitted for the CAPC position. The most recent position listed on the resume is tourist development director in Crystal River, Fla., with an end date of August 2023.
Despite being vetted by Staffmark, a quick Google search by the Times-Echo revealed a discipline-filled past for Pricher in the two most recent jobs listed on his resume.
Pricher was fired from the Crystal River position, according to a story in the Citrus County Chronicle. The story reports that Pricher was fired by the Citrus County Visitors and Convention Bureau after two disciplinary hearings.
In July 2023, Pricher was placed on administrative leave “after it came to light he proceeded with a manatee education campaign at the Cincinnati Zoo, even though county commissioners previously told him not to,” the story reports. “The county received from the zoo three invoices totaling $50,000.”
Pricher worked on the zoo project with Crystal River’s advertising agency, Madden Media, the same agency used by the CAPC, according to online reports.
The story goes on to report that the July incident came just five months after Pricher was suspended for three days without pay “over expenses he incurred on his county- issued credit card while on a London business trip.”
“Pricher, in a July 21 email … submitted his resignation terms with a laundry list of demands, including 12 months of salary, 100 percent of his sick leave and vacation balance and travel expenses related to prior work assignments,” according to the report in the Chronicle. “… More than one county commissioner called the resignation terms outlandish.”
Pricher was hired in Crystal River in November 2017. Another Chronicle report revealed that he had discipline issues in his previous position. According to his resume, Pricher worked for the Alachua County Visitors and Convention Bureau in Gainesville, Fla., in a variety of roles from 1997 to August 2017, serving as tourist development director from October 2013 until his departure.
The Chronicle requested public records that showed “a host of disciplinary actions in his former post in Alachua County.”
“Some mirror the same problems that led to Pricher last week being placed on paid administrative leave in Citrus County, including going above the heads of his bosses and submitting questionable expense reports,” the July 18, 2023, story reads, adding that a supervisor was proposing termination in a July 2017 memo, a month before Pricher’s resume indicates he left his position in Alachua County.
“He applied for the vacant Citrus County tourism director post, and county commissioners hired him about three months later,” the story reads.
The Chronicle reports that in August 2016 Pricher was put on a “job performance improvement plan” designed to “successfully accomplish your job and improve your credibility with elected officials, citizens and your supervisor.”
“On multiple occasions, you have completely disregarded the direction of the Board of County Commissioners and County Manager, are performing substandard work, are unresponsive and have little, if any, credibility with many groups that you routinely interact with,” the Chronicle wrote regarding a memo that was sent to Pricher from Gina Peebles, assistant county manager in Alachua.
The story goes on to report that travel reimbursements submitted by Pricher for a trip to California was found to have “irregularities.”
“His receipts didn’t match his conference hotel (he stayed in an Airbnb) and he valet parked, but turned in receipts that didn’t match and are on his personal American Express card, not his county issued card,” according to the story.
The story goes on to report that in 2016 Pricher was reprimanded by supervisors for questionable communications regarding applicants for a grant process.
“You have questioned why outside agencies are requesting your department’s information through our Public Information Office and the primary reasons are that they don’t trust you and you do not immediately respond,” the Chronicle reported regarding communications from Peebles to Pricher. “I am concerned that you have exhibited less than professional behavior with outside groups and given the appearance of favoritism for certain groups.”
Peebles told the Chronicle that nobody from Citrus County had contacted her before Pricher’s hire there.
“…but that doesn’t mean officials in Citrus County did not contact someone else within Alachua County,” according to the report.
Pricher received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida where he was a pitcher on baseball team. He also had a brief stint in minor league baseball in the California Angels organization, according to his resume.
Former CAPC executive director Lacey Ekberg also worked briefly in Alachua County before coming to Eureka Springs.
Ekberg served as the CAPC’s executive director from August 2019 to February 2020, when the commission voted to shift her role from a full-time city employee to an independent contractor on a 90-day agreement. That decision came after the Lovely County Citizen reported on a number of discrepancies between the resume Ekberg submitted to the CAPC and her actual employment history as described in several published accounts and public documents.
Among those discrepancies was Ekberg’s failure to list a position she held as a tourism development manager for just over two months in Alachua County before being fired. At the time of her employment in Alachua County, which began April 16, 2018, and ended with her termination on June 19, 2018, Ekberg was on a partially paid leave of absence from a similar position in Switzerland County, Ind., with sources and documentation indicating that neither employer was aware of the other.
