Merced Sun-Star
Riverside Motorsports Park CEO John Condren has billed himself as a skilled corporate executive and entrepreneur who has successfully launched, managed and sold companies across the country and around the world.
But a Sun-Star investigation into Condren's professional past has revealed another picture of the businessman who has promised to build a quarter-billion-dollar racetrack complex that could change the face of Merced County. It's marked by bankruptcies, failed businesses and unpaid debts.
Some of the claims Condren has made about his background, as posted in a profile that appeared on RMP's Web site, are either embellished or false, the Sun-Star has found. The profile was altered to correct some of the inaccuracies on Wednesday, following inquiries from the newspaper.
The investigation found:
— Condren has twice filed bankruptcy, most recently in 1996.
— RMP's Web site claimed Condren holds an "advanced degree in international business marketing." He only has a bachelor's degree in management.
— The Web site claimed Condren started a software development company that he later sold to become a $75 million division within another company. The founder of the company Condren claims to have sold it to says that never happened. Instead, he says Condren helped him market a 1-900 telephone sex line.
— Condren was excommunicated from the Mormon church in Nauvoo, Ill., in the early 1990s in part because of complaints from other church members about Condren's business dealings, the congregation’s former bishop said.
— RMP's Web site says one of Condren's companies won a $60 million contract from the U.S. Department of Energy. A spokesman for the DOE lab that entered into the agreement with Condren's company says Condren never completed any of the work, and ultimately his company's proposal for the project was rejected.
— RMP's Web site said Condren was the director of sales and marketing for FMC Corporation, a leading chemical company with offices around the globe. The company that provides employment verification for FMC says it has no record of Condren. RMP's spokeswoman now says he never worked there.
Condren and RMP spokeswoman Jeanne Harper Condren, who also is Condren's wife, both strongly objected to Sun-Star inquiries about Condren's professional background.
"I don't understand why a private businessman deserves this kind of scrutiny," Harper Condren said.
In an interview with the Sun-Star on Monday, which Condren wouldn't allow the newspaper to record, Condren acknowledged that RMP's Web site overstated his educational credentials. He said the rest of the information the site provided about him is accurate.
A seven-page statement Condren faxed to the Sun-Star on Wednesday said RMP "regrets the errors and clarifications, and confirms that the statements and/or the corrections made were not to mislead and are not a reflection on the integrity of Mr. Condren."
Condren said his bankruptcies and failed businesses are the result of both the risk that comes with starting any new business and, in one case, massive floods that cut traffic to three restaurants he owned in Illinois in 1993.
"John is an extremely astute businessman," Harper Condren said. "He pursues the difficult things and he does it with commitment, drive and high integrity."
Condren and his wife both said his excommunication had nothing to do with his business dealings.
"I'm not hiding anything and I'm not afraid of any part of my business background," Condren said.
Controversy drew the spotlight
The 54-year-old Condren, who now lives about 40 miles outside of San Jose in Morgan Hill, first proposed building a 1,300-acre, eight-venue motorsports complex in Merced County in 2003.
Since initial environmental reviews of Condren's proposal were released in November 2005, the project has become perhaps the most controversial in local history.
In lengthy, emotionally charged public hearings, many local residents expressed strong opposition to Condren's plans, saying the racing complex would destroy the nearby agricultural community and create too much pollution, noise and traffic. Others said economic benefits RMP could bring — including hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenues — were too much to pass up.
The Merced County Board of Supervisors approved plans for the project last month.
The debate, however, included little discussion of Condren's background and entrepreneurial wherewithal. Besides what was posted to RMP’s Web site, Condren has remained guarded about his past and the project's financial backing.
Through public database searches and interviews, the Sun-Star took a closer look at the businessman behind RMP.
Numerous Web biography inaccuracies
Among the companies Condren says he has previously founded is a software development firm called Chimerical Corporation. According to the profile of Condren that appeared on his Web site before it was altered this week, Condren later sold Chimerical to another software development company called Coral Companies.
RMP's site said that after he sold his company to Coral, he retained the position of president and chief operating officer of Coral's $75 million Chimerical Division.
Paul Lionti, who says he founded Coral Companies in 1986 and remained the head of the company until it folded in 1991, confirmed he knew Condren.
But Lionti says Condren never worked for Coral nor sold a company to Coral. Lionti says Coral never had a Chimerical Division, and the company's annual revenue never surpassed $15 million.
"Our company never made any acquisition of that magnitude during its entire existence," said Lionti, who is listed as Coral's director on financial reports the company filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
In an interview Monday, Condren maintained the claim on his Web site was accurate, but declined to provide proof or documentation of Chimerical's sale or of his employment with Coral.
Written statements Condren sent the Sun-Star on Wednesday said RMP's Web site was "revised to more clearly state the role and relationship Mr. Condren maintained with Chimerical." The site now only states that Condren served as founder of Chimerical. It no longer mentions Coral.
Lionti said he knew Condren through a separate business venture unrelated to Coral. In 1990 he paid Condren about $30,000 in exchange for marketing and consulting services Condren provided to help Lionti launch a 1-900 telephone sex line, Lionti said.
RMP's Web site also says Condren founded a software development firm called SciBus Analytical, Inc., which won a $60 million technology-transfer contract from the U.S. Department of Energy.
California secretary of state business records show Condren started SciBus in 1995. In 1997 the state placed a lien against the company for $1,200 in unpaid taxes, Santa Clara County Court records show. John Barrett, a spokesman for the state Franchise Tax Board, said the state suspended the company's articles of incorporation a year later when SciBus still hadn't paid.
The U.S. Department of Energy confirmed it entered into a $60 million, five-year cooperative agreement with SciBus in 1996 to commercialize a technology developed by the DOE.
But Todd Hanson, a spokesman for the DOE lab that entered into the agreement with SciBus, said SciBus never completed any work for the DOE. Instead, he said, Condren's company couldn't obtain enough capital to fulfill its end of the agreement, and SciBus's proposal for the project was ultimately rejected.
Hanson said a DOE official who worked with SciBus told him that Condren's company "... overpromised, didn't deliver as everyone seemed to expect and then dissolved without much communication."
Condren called Hanson's statements "empty accusations."
"That's totally inaccurate," Condren said. "Whoever you talked to just doesn't know any better."
Harper Condren, who says she worked as a consultant for SciBus, also disagreed with the DOE's statements. Harper Condren said SciBus worked for the DOE for two years and completed "a lot of deliverables" before the project was transferred to another private company, Raytheon.
"It was the DOE's decision to give it to Raytheon," Harper Condren said. "But it wasn't a lack of performance on SciBus's part ... It was a political decision ... They in essence stole the contract from us and gave it to Raytheon."
A spokeswoman for Raytheon said the company couldn't immediately comment.
Condren's Web site also claimed before it was updated this week that he holds an "advanced degree in international business marketing."
Condren said he's "not sure why" the site said he holds an advanced degree, as he only holds a bachelor's degree in international business marketing from St. Mary's College in Moraga. The site now says Condren holds a "B.S. in business with an emphasis on international marketing." The registrar's office at St. Mary's College says his bachelor's degree is in management.
Before it was altered this week, RMP's Web site also claimed Condren once held the position of director of sales and marketing for FMC Corporation, a leading chemical company with offices around the globe.
The company that provides payroll services and employment verification for FMC, Ceridian Corporation, says they have no record of Condren.
In an interview, Condren maintained that he worked for the company from 1983 to 1987 in its engineered systems division. But FMC spokesman Jim Fitzwater said the company sold that division in 1981, two years before Condren claims to have started at FMC.
Harper Condren at first also said Condren worked for FMC, adding that she met Condren there. She later said Condren may have only worked for Engineered Systems and Development Corporation, a smaller company that's since gone out of business, formed after FMC sold its engineered systems division. "I guess maybe it (the Web site) shouldn't say FMC," Harper Condren said.
RMP's Web site now reads that Condren worked for "FMC/ESD Corporation."
Condren's Web site also claims he worked as a "bio-engineering design engineer" at SRI International.
SRI's human resources department says its records list Condren's job title as "engineering assistant- mechanical." SRI wouldn't expand on what type of job duties Condren held as an engineering assistant, citing the company's confidentiality rules.
Condren maintains the claim on his Web site is accurate.
Some of the information about Condren's professional background that appears on RMP's Web site is accurate, including that Condren was a founding partner and president of 3Sixty Market View, Inc., that he worked as a marketing director at Cadence Design Systems, and that he worked in a corporate role at the San Jose office of Reel Service Limited.
Attempts to contact SpectraScan International, Inc., where Condren says he worked in Colorado Springs as a vice president of marketing and sales, were unsuccessful.
A spokeswoman for Motorola, where Condren says he worked as a national sales manager, said the company doesn't verify employment or release information about past employees to the media.
Two bankruptcies were filed
Condren first filed bankruptcy in Southern California in the 1970s. Condren said that bankruptcy was the result of failed business endeavors he undertook with friends.
"I was young and stupid and got in over my head," Condren said. "I started a business with friends and they bailed on me. They left me holding the bag."
His most recent bankruptcy was filed in 1996 and listed approximately $213,000 in credit card debt, business expenses, loans and other liabilities, according to U.S. Bankruptcy Court documents.
Much of the debt stemmed from three restaurants Condren opened in Nauvoo, Ill. — a city of about 1,000 people known for its recently rebuilt Mormon temple — where Condren lived from 1992 to 1994.
Condren said massive floods that cut traffic to his restaurants in 1993 caused the businesses to fail, forcing him into bankruptcy. Harper Condren said the bankruptcy doesn't discredit Condren's ability to manage a business, and provided the Sun-Star letters from Condren's accountant and bankruptcy attorney stating the floods were to blame for the bankruptcy.
"People who stick their necks out don't always have the cleanest record," Harper Condren said.
And some of Condren's former business partners described Condren as an ambitious, capable businessman.
"He's a very positive guy," said Michael O'Hagan, who worked with Condren at SciBus Analytical. "Whenever there's a problem he just speeds through and gets it done. He was very capable when we worked together."
But some who knew and worked with Condren in Nauvoo — while they acknowledge the flooding contributed to his bankruptcy — raised complaints about Condren's business dealings there and the debts he left behind.
"It was like he just showed up here one day with all these big ideas for the town," said Bonnie Trapp, who knew Condren when he lived in Nauvoo and now owns a restaurant formerly owned by Condren. "He was real gung-ho, and some people got caught up in it ... But when he left, he left a lot of ill will and a lot of bills."
Merlin Reittinger, a former bishop of Nauvoo's Mormon congregation, said Condren was excommunicated from the church shortly before he left Nauvoo, in part because of complaints from other church members about Condren's business dealings.
"When he left, he owed money all over town," Reittinger said. "A lot of non (church) members were also complaining about the way he was doing business."
Reittinger served as bishop of Nauvoo's Mormon congregation from 2000 to 2004. He said he served as a lower church leader at the time Condren was excommunicated.
Harper Condren called Reittinger's statements "a complete lie." Condren said in a statement his excommunication "was not associated with any lack of business ethics." He added that questionable business practices are not sanctioned as grounds for excommunication by the Mormon church.
Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for the Mormon church's national headquarters in Salt Lake City, said the church doesn't strictly rule out any justifications for excommunication. "Those decisions are up to the local ecclesiastical leaders," Farah said.
Steven Preader, whose father entered into an agreement to lease one of Condren's Nauvoo restaurants in 1996, said his father also lost money to Condren.
According to bankruptcy court documents, Condren leased the restaurant to Steven and Lisa Preader in September of 1996, two months before he filed for bankruptcy. The $350 per month lease came with an option to buy the restaurant after a year for $75,000.
Steven Preader's son, also named Steven Preader, said Condren didn't disclose the severity of his debt when Preader began leasing the property. He said his father spent at least three months renovating the restaurant and had just opened its doors when he learned the property would be repossessed to pay a business loan Condren had taken against the property.
"He felt pretty deceived that (Condren) had leased it to him without telling him about all the debt," Preader said. "My dad put quite a bit of money and time and sweat into it ... It left a pretty bad taste in his mouth when he had to give up the property."
Condren maintains his failed businesses and bankruptcies are no reflection on his ability to manage his current undertakings.
A statement attributed to RMP's board of directors that Condren sent the Sun-Star this week said RMP's "board and the company's investors and shareholders are extremely pleased with the integrity, honesty, focus, leadership and resolve shown by Mr. Condren over the last six-and-one-half years that he has led the company."
Reporter Corinne Reilly can be reached at 385-2477 or creilly@mercedsun-star.com. Reporter Leslie Albrecht contributed to this story.
