Intrepid Potash Inc. said Feb. 11 that it has accepted the resignation of its president and chief operating officer, Patrick Avery. He submitted his resignation and confirmed that despite his several years of attendance and course work at the University of Colorado and Loyola Marymount University, he did not receive a B.A. degree from the University of Colorado or an M.S. degree from Loyola Marymount University, as he had previously represented. The company said it learned of these facts Feb. 10.
Intrepid anticipates entering into an agreement with Avery to serve as an operations consultant for an as yet undetermined period of time. The company will commence a search for a new chief operating officer.
“After consulting with our board of directors, the company accepted Mr. Avery’s resignation because his misrepresentation of his academic credentials was a violation under the Company’s Code of Business Conduct,” said Robert Jornayvaz III, Intrepid chairman and CEO. “We are disappointed with this matter. Pat Avery came to Intrepid with more than twenty years of service with J.R. Simplot and ARCO, and his experience was very helpful to our operations since joining our Company in 2007.”
Avery’s duties as president will be assumed by Jornayvaz, while his duties as chief operating officer will be assumed by Hugh Harvey Jr., chief technology officer. Jornayvaz and Harvey, co-founders of Intrepid, had these respective responsibilities prior to Avery assuming them.
The Fraud Discovery Institute of San Diego claims credit for presenting the information to Intrepid and essentially dared the company to fire him. Prior to Intrepid’s own announcement, Barry Minkow, FDI co-founder, issued a statement saying Intrepid must send a message to Wall Street that under-oath misrepresentations to the SEC are unacceptable. “In this post-Madoff environment it is truly amazing that the average investor who relies upon SEC filings to be accurate before making an investment decision cannot even rely upon the biographical portion of those filings, not to mention what else may be inferred.”
Minkow reportedly owned put options for Intrepid and traditionally buys stock in companies that he investigates. Minkow himself was convicted in 1988 of corporate fraud in the ZZZZ Best carpet cleaning company scandal and served seven years in prison. Today, in addition to FDI, Minkow is a pastor at Community Bible Church in San Diego.
One source noted that had Intrepid remained a private company, this issue would never have come up, and that greater scrutiny for public companies under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and now the Madoff scandal, pretty much assured Avery’s quick exit.