U.S. Olympic Committee Appoints Next Ombuds

The USOC has announced that Kathleen (Kacie) Wallace will be its new Athlete Ombudsman.  She succeeds John Ruger, who established the program in 1999, and joins Sara Clark, Athlete Ombudsman Specialist, who was hired earlier this year.  Sarah  Konrad, chair of the Athletes' Advisory Council said, "Kacie is a world-class attorney and mediator, and committed to doing right by the athletes. We couldn't have found a better fit."

Wallace has over two decades of dispute resolution experience and currently heads her own mediation firm in North Carolina.  She is a law professor and supervising attorney in the Dispute Resolution Institute at North Carolina Central University School of Law. She has taught conflict resolution courses at Duke University and elsewhere.   Wallace served as the USOC Ombudsperson for the 2011 Paralympic PanAm Games. She received an Innovation Award from the MacArthur Foundation in 2008 for the development of virtual learning and training environments to teach conflict resolution practitioners.  She also is a competitive open water swimmer and endurance standup paddleboarder. She graduated from Duke, earned a JD from North Carolina Central University, and an LLM in Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine University.  (USOC Press Release, Duke Law Profile.)
 

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