Food bank board relieves executive director of position

Staff report

After nearly 22 months, the Food Bank of Eastern New Mexico cut ties with MelindaJoy Pattison as executive director.

According to a release from the organization, the food bank’s board held a special meeting Thursday where it relieved Pattison and appointed Board President Daniel Blea as interim executive director.

Allan Isbell, who was named interim board president with Blea’s move, said the hope is to name a successor and reconstitute the board as before within 90 days.

Isbell said the move was made due to a “difference of opinion,” but declined to elaborate.

“The food bank is sound,” he said.

Pattison, who started with the food bank in August 2012, said she was told by phone Thursday morning she was terminated and still hasn’t been told why.

“They were not forthcoming with any information at all,” Pattison said. “They waited until I was out of town to do whatever it is they did to let them take over the food bank, and told me about it after.”

Pattison was appointed interim executive director Aug. 14, 2012, nearly two weeks after the death Nancy Taylor, one of the non-profit’s founders and longtime director. The board lifted the interim tag four months later.

“I am extremely proud of the work that was accomplished in those 22 months,” Pattison said. “I am extremely proud of the team of employees I put together. They are a stellar group. I have no regrets about any decisions I made during those 22 months.”

The salary range for the position, based on estimates Pattison previously told the newspaper, is between $45,000 and $50,000 annually.

Blea, Isbell said, is a retired chief master sergeant with the Air Force who has served on the board for three years, and is familiar with operations.

“He has a really good working knowledge of all of the aspects of the Food Bank of Eastern New Mexico as far as monies coming in, food going out,” Isbell said of Blea. “His main concern is, we feed the hungry.”

The food bank distributed more than 1.2 million pounds of food last year through agencies and schools in Curry, Roosevelt, De Baca, Quay and Guadalupe counties.

The food bank employs nine people, seven full-time, Isbell said. The non-profit organization celebrated its 30th anniversary last year.