JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – One day after the Wounded Warrior Project's Board of Directors fired the nonprofit's top two executives, the man who founded the charity more than 20 years ago told the Associated Press that he's open to returning to run the organization.
Two years after former Marine John Melia, who was injured in a helicopter crash in Somalia, and his wife began stuffing backpacks to give to wounded warriors, his organization became a federally recognized charity in 2005.
Melia later recruited Steven Nardizzi and Al Giordano to the organization. Nardizzi, a lawyer who brought an aggressive entrepreneurial style to the charity, became chief executive officer and turned Wounded Warrior Project into an $800 million fundraising enterprise.
Sources told News4Jax that Nardizzi pushed Melia out of the organization in 2009.
A press release in 2009 said he Melia would stay on board with WWP, but he did not.
That's what made Friday's announcement so significant, people have not heard from him in years when it comes to the charity.
With Nardizzi and chief operating officer Giordano fired in response to reports of lavish spending, Melia told the AP on Friday that he's asked for an "immediate" meeting with the board of directors to offer his help.
Melia said donors who supported the group since its humble beginning "have every right to be angry about the lack of stewardship shown by the immediate past leadership of WWP," and "the new leadership of the WWP must do everything in its power to restore its relationship and regain the trust of those it serves and its donors."
Melia said the actions of the two fired executives should not reflect poorly on charity employees who are still doing good work.
A spokesman for the Wounded Warrior Project board of directors said Friday that the board had no comment on Melia's offer to return to lead the charity.
Aftermath of major shakeup
Sources told News4Jax that Wounded Warrior Project staff members were battling mixed emotions Friday. Some were happy that the top two execs were gone, and others were shocked and disappointed to learn the news of the firings through the media and not internally.
Marcus Mason and Erick Millette, two wounded combat veterans and former Wounded Warrior Project alums, said they are concerned that a generation of veterans are paying the price for the greedy wrongs of a few who were entrusted to lead.
“You see a result, and hopefully, it's only a beginning of more to come,” Millette said.
Millette, a former WWP spokesman turned whistleblower, first spoke to News4Jax two months ago about lavish spending by Wounded Warrior Project executives on staff instead of warriors.
Warriors like Mason, a father and retired Marine, who said he turned to a program run by the charity only to be abandoned later when he needed help the most.
Mason, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury, first came to News4Jax after our initial investigative reports aired in January.
He said he was kicked out of the charity's Track Program, which is aimed at helping veterans go back to college, after he sounded an alarm to management about a program problem. He said the charity's culture of intimidation kicked in and he was immediately cut off from all resources, possibly out of retaliation.
“You would think with the amount of money that comes through they could do whatever needed to help a veteran. That's not the case,” Mason said.
News4Jax put Mason in touch with Millette, who took Mason under his wing and is helping him volunteer through his nonprofit working with the homeless in Jacksonville.
“You giving me an opportunity to link up with Marcus restored my faith in humanity to know there are still people out there who care,” Millette said.
Mason said he's also grateful for the opportunity to meet Millette.
“We were in country at the same time and didn't know each other, and it's amazing how things came together,” Mason said. “Now all I can say is thank you.”
The two have bonded not only over war stories, but through an unexpected battle back at home with the Wounded Warrior Project.
“WWP says the greatest casualty is being forgotten. Look at Marcus. If that's the greatest casualty, they're committing the greatest casualty,” Millette said. “They need to look at their core values and rearrange them. Look at brave men, like Marcus, and say, 'Where did we go wrong? Why did we do this to this young man?' 'How do we fix this?'
Top 2 execs ousted from WWP
After weeks of News4Jax and national investigators breaking stories on allegations of questionable spending and a culture of fear at the Jacksonville-based nonprofit, the board fired Nardizzi and Giordano.
The board also announced that it has created an Office of the CEO to oversee the organization on an interim basis, effective immediately. That office will be led by WWP Board Chairman Anthony Odierno and will consist of senior members of the existing executive team.
READ: WWP announces leadership changes
The board will initiate a nationwide search for a permanent CEO.
Nardizzi and Giordano were two of the members of the executive team making up the core leadership of the nation’s largest veterans charity, which brought in $350 million in donations in 2014, according to the nonprofit’s most-recently audited financial statements.
A major contributor to that total was Fred Kane, who raised $325,000 for WWP over the last eight years through golf tournaments.
Kane's two sons were both deployed when he started the effort, and he said he felt personally betrayed by the accusations that the charity misused donated funds. He started a petition demanding Nardizzi be fired and a full audit of the charity's finances be made public.
He told News4Jax via Skype from South Carolina on Thursday that he was pleased with the board's decision.
“We think it's definitely a step in the right direction. The problem is there is a culture, a systemic culture, and I think moving forward they will have to go through a lot of changes, personnel changes,” Kane said.
He said he has one word for Nardizzi.
“Goodbye.”
News4Jax first began investigating the charity in early January. We spoke with seven former employees, who all relayed stories of wasteful spending at employee training events and unnecessary office parties.
That spending included a training event at the Broadmoor in Colorado, which cost $970,000.
One of those whistleblowers was Millette, one of the only former employees willing to put his name and face behind his complaints against the nonprofit, despite fear of retaliation and lawsuits.
Millette said he was assured by a board member who called him to investigate the allegations that he would not be sued or threatened.
WATCH: Lynnsey Gardner's interview with Erick Millette
“I've always known that I was willing to do the hard right over the easy wrong and speak up when something needed to be said," Millette said. "Standing up for my fellow veterans, those brave men and women who served right along side me, they're family, and they deserve better. And the board has taken the necessary steps to make sure that they get what they deserve.”
Millette agreed with Kane that the firings of the charity's top executives is a step in the right direction for Wounded Warrior Project.
"I think that it shows that the board took everybody's allegations of misuse of donor dollars seriously. They brought in independent auditors and did an investigation themselves and found everything that we are speaking of," Millette said. "It shows that there was not complete transparency at the executive level of Wounded Warrior Project. That there were things being hidden and not being revealed to the public.”
Along with spending practices, former employees also questioned the group's practice of printing expensive annual yearbooks for its staff that cost more than $20,000 a year.
Sources connected to the WWP board said several elements in the News4Jax investigative reports were heavily considered in the board's decision, including two lawsuits filed against Wounded Warrior Project employees and injured veterans, the yearbooks, a major donor pulling his support, and executive Adam Silva taking to social media to call the allegations and subsequent review “bull****.”
Charity Navigator, an independent charity oversight group, examined Wounded Warrior Project's financial filings with the IRS and found just under 60 percent of all donations go back into veterans' programs.
Another charity watchdog, Charity Watch, used a different financial resource, Wounded Warrior Project's independently audited financial statements, and found just 54 percent of donations went to veterans.
Wounded Warrior Project disputes both ratings on social media, saying 80 percent of spending goes back into programs for services.
Since the allegations surfaced, Charity Navigator placed WWP on its Watch List as an alert for donors. Before doing so, Charity Navigator's committee gave WWP two days to respond, but never heard from the organization.
Millette said it was encouraging that the board took the allegations seriously.
“(I'm glad they) did not look at us as a group of disgruntled employees, because that's not what we are. We're a group of former employees who are very concerned about America's brave men and women who fought so hard for our country. And we're also concerned about the donors, and where their money was supposed to be going, and where it was actually going,” Millette said.
The Patriots Initiative, a California-based charity that grades military charities, also downgraded WWP and removed the charity from its list of efficient and transparent charities.
Silva, the charity's chief programs officer, spoke out about the investigative reports on his social media pages, referring to the controversy as "heavy bulls***."
One of Silva's Facebook posts, made two days after the investigative reports in January, read:
“Disclaimer: 'Everyone has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth.' ... This week many who love me asked, 'how you holding up?' My response: God blessed me with the honor and responsibility of leading the baddest f'ing non-profit program team IN THE WORLD for the baddest f'ing Veterans Service Organization IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. I'd say I'm 'holding up' pretty well.”
Silva's current position with the charity is unclear.
Millette said he thinks the executives thought they were untouchable.
“I think they hid things from the board, and by us coming forward, it shed some light on things that the board didn't have knowledge of or didn't know what was going on,” Millette said. “When they did their audit and their investigation, they found it. Now they're going to hold those people responsible.”
In response to the local and national stories about the questionable spending practices, the WWP board of directors, made up of six men, issued a statement, saying "the Board takes very seriously the concerns that have been raised" and promising a full financial and policy review.
That review ended Thursday with the firing of the two executives, who made more than $890,000 in salary and bonuses between them.
Nardizzi was paid $473,000 in salary and $23,000 in bonuses. Giordano made $369,000 in salary and $28,000 in bonuses.
Of the six WWP board members, four are veterans and two were injured in combat. Most of the board members are based in the Northeast. One is an executive vice president for CBS Corp. Another worked with General Electric and Home Depot.
The board said in its release that it will strengthen WWP's travel policies and policies related to employee and director expenses. It will also enhance employee training and will continue to have its financial statements independently audited and available on the organization's Website.
Odierno also released a statement Thursday, saying:
"I would like to thank WWP's dedicated employees, donors, sponsors and partners who have stood loyally by this organization over the last six weeks while the Board conducted a very comprehensive review of its operations and the allegations that were made..."It is now time to put the organization's focus directly back on the men and women who have so bravely fought for our country and who need our support."