The founder of Wounded Warrior Project said he deserves a response from board members about wanting to come back as CEO.
On Friday, John Melia said he was open to leading the organization again. On Monday, he said he's left messages all weekend for board members and tells Action News Jax they're not calling him back.
He said as the founder of this organization he said he "deserves a response."
Right now, there is a petition on Change.org asking the board to bring back Melia as CEO.
The petition argues, he is "the one person who can restore the honor and integrity to WWP." Melia tells us that's all he wants to do right now.
On Monday morning, Wounded Warrior Project board chairman Anthony Odierno appeared on the CBS Morning Show, defending the decision to fire CEO Steven Nardizzi and COO Al Giordiano.
Action News Jax was the first local station to break news of the investigation into accusations of lavish spending and big trips.
Odierno said they are now putting new policies in place about travel and strengthening spending controls. But he said the board wanted to look at everything after these allegations.
“I knew some of them didn’t properly represent the organization but it was important to the board to know exactly what the facts were,” Odierno said. “I wouldn't say we got severely off track. When you do this type of review, with what we do, any organization will find something.”
Odierno also said he is setting up a committee to search for the next CEO.
We reached out to Wounded Warrior Project about the board not responding to Melia's calls to return, but our emails have gone unanswered.