Richard Howd on Mike Rinder

I knew Mike Rinder personally when we were working on a project together here in Clearwater about in the late 90s, early 2000s. He came across, the one word would be “weasel.” You know, because he came across as extremely slick, extremely, he was good at self-preservation. He was good at covering his own ass. And he, nothing was ever his fault even though he was involved in this particular, the problems with this particular project from the very beginning. And he had probably the most authority to guide whether that project ended up in a good state or bad state. And it ended up in a very bad state. And it was due in a huge part to Mike Rinder.

I never really saw him work, you know. He would come in, like, to my office and really complain about things, whether it had anything to do with our particular area or not. And then he would stomp off. I can’t say I ever had an opportunity where we sat down and we were working together. He wasn’t that type of person. He was kind of like, you know, stomp into a room, bellow about some things and then stomp out.

He came in yelling about where a particular set of files were that I was working on. And I was like, “Well, Sir, I’m just working on these now.” And he was like, “I can’t believe these aren’t done, blah, blah, blah.” He’s like, “Well, show me what you have.” And I showed him and he’s like, “That’s not the way to do it.” And he sits down and he grabs a redwell, which is those brownish cardboard containers that you can put files in. And he goes, “I’ll show you how to do it.” And he takes a redwell and he takes about four or five blank folders and he takes a pen and I’m like, “Okay, well now he’s going to show me how exactly how he wants it done, this is great.” And he looks around, he goes, “I’ll be right back.” And he gets up and walks out of the office. And so I figured he’d be back. So I’m just sitting there waiting for him. And it’s like five minutes go by and no Mike Rinder. Ten minutes go by and no Mike Rinder. Finally, after 15 minutes, I was like, “Where’d he go?” So I get up and I walk out and he’s nowhere around. And I go to the Receptionist, I go, “Hey, did Mr. Rinder come by?” And she goes, “Yeah, he left about 15 minutes ago.” So I was like, that was the closest I ever got to working with Mike Rinder.

He always felt he was the smartest person in a room. And you could just tell by the way he acted, by his comments. And he would do this one thing, there’s this one thing I just remembered he would do, is like if he called you on the phone, and if he asked you a question, it was usually in an accusatory manner and you’d be explaining it and soon as he got the information he want, he would just hang up on you.

There was one other thing I can recall and I mean, it’s again, it was, there was one very important aspect of this project I was going to have to do. And Mike was specifically assigned with preparing me for this. And you could tell he didn’t want to do it.

And he asked me, he goes, “What are you going to do if somebody asks you this question?” And I gave him the wrong answer. And he was like, “No, that’s the wrong answer.” And I was like, “Oh, okay.” You know, I didn’t know what the wrong or right answer was, you know. And so this went on for about 10 or 15 minutes, just like that, you know. And then he goes, again he goes, “Hold on a second, I’ll be right back.” And I was like, “Oh boy, here we go again.” And he got up and he left. And I just sat there for the next half an hour. He never came back. It was one of those. So I just went back to my desk and started working and just like tried to prepare myself for what he was supposed to be preparing me for. But it was just, it was terrible. He didn’t like brief me up on anything he was supposed to and it was again, just a really brushed off, angry incident, dealing with Mike.

Mike Rinder was probably one of the most arrogant people I’ve ever met and probably the most arrogant person I ever met working for the Church.