Arabian Horse Association still serves 44,000 members.

• Author: Schmidt, Donna

When the nonprofit, Colorado-based Arabian Horse Association, an international horse registry with 44,000 members, hired a new executive vice-president last May, its members were looking for change.

The change had nothing to do with why the association, which promotes one of the world's oldest and most fabled breed of horse, had gained instant national fame eight months earlier.

Mike Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, had made a mess of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the national press, according to AHA President Myron Krause, "camped out on the association's lawn in Southeast Metro Denver, while the AHA's phones "rang off the hook with reporters," he said.

But it wasn't Brown, who served as a paid commissioner of judges and stewards for AHA, who had caused a steady decline not only in horse registrations but in revenue and annual surplus for the nearly 100-year-old nonprofit, said Gary Zimmerman, the new executive vice president hired to turn around the financial performance of the registry.

"The association had been run like a little horse club," said Zimmerman, "when in fact it needs to be run exactly like a business, to the point of making a profit."

"From 1995 up to today, this has not been the most productive period for the association," he added. "We have seen a decline year after year after year in the number of registrations, resulting in an actual decline in the breed." Changes in tax law, increased costs of fuel and transportation and the rising costs to show and train horses all contribute to a lack of demand for expensive Arabians, he said. "That's not good for the horses, the organization or the membership.

"We are also in the process of correcting some serious strategic errors, and aggressively implementing new initiatives. One strategic error is that we have been very narrowly focused on horse-show events."

Zimmerman's predecessor, Barbara Burke, said of the time when Brown brought the national spotlight to AHA that the association had "a lot of bigger things to worry about," mostly related to hefty losses.

In 2004, the organization lost $560,000 on about $11 million in revenue. Last year, it was able to post a $250,000 surplus on...