Decision  Disposition Agreement in the Matter of Erik Ormberg

Date:	04/30/2025
Organization:	State Ethics Commission
Docket Number:	25-0002
Referenced Sources:	G.L. c. 268A, the Conflict of Interest Law, as Amended by c. 248, Acts of 2024

Disposition Agreement

The State Ethics Commission (“Commission”) and Erik Ormberg (“Ormberg”) enter into this Disposition Agreement pursuant to Section 3 of the Commission’s Enforcement Procedures. This Agreement constitutes a consented-to final order enforceable in the Superior Court, pursuant to G.L. c. 268B, § 4(j).

On May 18, 2023, the Commission initiated a preliminary inquiry, pursuant to G.L. c. 268B, § 4(a), into possible violations of the conflict of interest law, G.L. c. 268A, by Ormberg. On June 20, 2024, the Commission concluded its inquiry and found reasonable cause to believe that Ormberg violated G.L. c. 268A, §§ 17(c), 19, 23(b)(2)(ii), and 23(b)(3).

The Commission and Ormberg now agree to the following findings of fact and conclusions of law:

Findings of Fact

1. Ormberg has been a full-time salaried School Counselor for the Medfield Public Schools (“MPS”) since 1998.
2. In 2002, Ormberg transferred from Thomas Blake Middle School to Medfield High School (“MHS”) and has continued in that position to the present.
3. As a School Counselor, Ormberg is in frequent communication with school staff, students, and students’ homes.
4. Ormberg has been the Head Varsity Football Coach (“Head Coach”) of the MHS football team, “the Warriors,” since February 2011.
5. As Head Coach, Ormberg’s duties include organizing practices and winter training, meeting with the team and parents, and meeting with college recruiters. As Head Coach, Ormberg also plans student and parent information nights about MHS fall sports.
6. Any MHS student who wants to join the MHS football team, and passes the pre-season athletic requirements, can join the team. As Head Coach, Ormberg determines team members’ playing time and positions.
7. As Head Coach, Ormberg supervises a coaching staff of five, who are paid under the MPS teachers’ contract. Ormberg makes recommendations, however, final hiring and other employment decisions are made by the Medfield School District administration. Some of the MHS coaches have been a part of the football program during all or most of his 14-year tenure as head coach.
8. On average, Ormberg’s caseload as an MHS School Counselor includes about three or four students in each grade who play MHS football.
9. Until 2012, MHS offered a school-sponsored fitness “Gut Camp.” MHS paid Ormberg to run the camp.
10. In 2012, MHS ceased offering Gut Camp and Ormberg began running Gut Camp privately.
11. In February 2018, Ormberg established a for-profit business, Warrior Industries, LLC, (“Warrior Industries”), of which he is the sole owner, manager, and director. Thereafter, Ormberg offered Gut Camp and three other programs through Warrior Industries.
12. In June 2022, June 2023, and June 2024, after the end of each school year, Ormberg, through Warrior Industries, offered a three-day football skills camp to Medfield middle school students and rising 9th graders called the “Junior Warrior Football Academy.” The cost of the camp, which was held on the MHS turf field, was $50 per day per student. About thirty to forty students attended the program each June.
13. Each summer between 2018 and 2024, Ormberg, through Warrior Industries, offered a seven-week program called “Warrior Conditioning Academy” (also called “Gut Camp”) primarily attended by Medfield middle and high school students and occasionally by middle and high school students from outside of Medfield. The program, which was held on MHS property, ran 1.75 hours per day, four days per week, for seven weeks, and cost each student $20 per day. Between fifteen and fifty students, both male and female, from a variety of sports teams (and some not from teams), attended the program each summer.
14. Each year between 2018 and 2024 (except 2020), Ormberg, through Warrior Industries, ran a program called “Passing League.” Passing League was a scrimmage clinic held on five consecutive Wednesday nights for 2.5 hours on MHS fields for students from MHS and five other high schools: Dover-Sherburn, Sharon, Millis, Hopkinton and Norwood.
15. Participating students did not pay to attend Passing League. Instead, Ormberg, through Warrior Industries, charged the head coaches from the five towns other than Medfield a flat rate of $350, for a total of $1,750 each year. The fees collected for Passing League were used to pay the rental fee and retain an Athletic Trainer for each of the five Wednesdays. 
16. In the middle of August each year between 2018 and 2024 (except 2020), Ormberg, through Warrior Industries, offered a three-day preseason football camp called “Warrior Football Academy.” The camp was offered to students from Medfield and the other five high schools that participate annually in Passing League. Approximately 200 students attended the Warrior Football Academy each year at a per student rate charged them by Ormberg, through Warrior Industries, which increased from $100 in 2018 to $150 in 2024.
17. Less than 50 percent of the attendees at Warrior Football Academy were MHS students.
18. During the relevant period, approximately 75 to 80 percent of MHS football players annually attended at least one day of programming offered by Ormberg through Warrior Industries.
19. Camp attendees paid Warrior Industries directly, except for Passing League.
20. During the relevant period, Ormberg advertised and provided information regarding the Warrior Industry camps through a private website, www.medfieldfootball.weebly.com, which Warrior Industries managed and paid for. The website also included information regarding the MHS Football program and other MHS matters. The website featured an MHS school letter logo displaying a stylized “M” similar but not identical to the Warrior’s stylized “M” design set over a football, the phrases “Medfield Football” and “Medfield Warrior Football,” and a “Meet the Warriors” section showing photographs and the names of members of the MHS Warriors Football team and of the MHS coaches, including Ormberg, with their MHS titles. The website also included links to official MHS matters, such as calendars, football season schedules, the team roster, and official school parent information related to student athletics.
21. As Head Coach, Ormberg created and managed a Twitter account, “@MHSGRIDIRON,” which he named “Medfield Football.” Throughout the relevant time period, Ormberg posted tweets not only about official school-related topics, but also ones related to his private business that promoted his camps.
22. In the Spring of each year throughout the relevant time period, Ormberg emailed a Google form from his MHS email address to all participating Medfield coaches and those of the other towns, about Passing League and the Warrior Football Academy.
23. As Head Coach, Ormberg each year during the relevant time period made a presentation using slides to students interested in football and their parents during an annual “Fall Sports Information Night” at MHS. In his presentations, Ormberg identified his private Warrier Industries’ camps as providing opportunities for athletes to get in shape for preseason and improve their football skills. Each of Ormberg’s presentations included a slide emphasizing the camps as “strongly recommended” for the student athletes to attend. Ormberg’s slides also stated, “[a]s a staff we feel Gut Camp, Warrior Football Academy, and Wednesdays (Passing League) are the most important camps to attend.” Beginning in 2022, the relevant PowerPoint slides stated that “All [camps] are optional.”
24. In 2022 and 2023, Ormberg used his MHS email and an MHS listserv to forward the PowerPoint slides from the Falls Sports Information night, including the slides that stated that the camps are “strongly recommended” and that “All [camps] are optional,” as well as written materials on the Warrior Conditioning and Warrior Football Academies that stated the camps were “not sponsored by the Medfield Public Schools.”  The listserv included all students in the MHS football program and their guardians and contained Ormberg’s name on the signature line accompanied by his public title as School Counselor, Medfield High School.
25. Ormberg, as Head Coach, regularly recommended Medfield student athletes attend his camps instead of other private camps.
26. As Head Coach, each February Ormberg sent an email to middle school students and their parents about the MHS football program. In addition to information about the football program, Ormberg included information about his private Junior Warrior Football Academy with a link to the Warrior Industries website to register. In the email, Ormberg described the camps as being “offered through the high school program” and “HIGHLY encouraged.” Additionally, within the MHS football team’s preseason schedule that Ormberg posted to the Warrior Industries’ website, Ormberg included his private camps and a message in which he described the Warrior Football Academy as “optional but strongly recommended.”     
27. During the relevant time period, Ormberg, through Warrior Industries, hired and employed five of MHS’s Assistant Coaches who he supervised as Head Coach to work at his private camps.
28. Warrior Industries did not post or advertise camp coaching positions. Instead, Ormberg invited and encouraged his MHS subordinates to work for Warrior Industries. While Ormberg, as Head Coach, does not regularly provide performance reviews of the Assistant Coaches, sign their timesheets, or set their salaries, he participates in MHS hiring decisions each year and assigns the Assistant Coaches their specific coaching positions for each season.  
29. Ormberg, through Warrior Industries, privately paid the five MHS Assistant Coaches between $850 and $4,200, for their work in his private football camps, and the Conditioning Academy.
30. Ormberg, through Warrior Industries, made donations to the Medfield High School football program. In addition, in 2021 and 2022, Ormberg, through Warrior Industries, provided financial assistance to a total of 29 camp attendees.
31. Warrior Industries’ payroll records show that Ormberg caused his company to pay himself as “Director” $13,000 in 2018, $9,950 in 2019, $11,500 in 2021, $15,100 in 2022, $14,700 in 2023, and $5,750 in 2024; a total of $70,000 during the relevant time period.
32. Warrior Industries paid fees to rent the MHS facilities, including a weight room and turf field, where Ormberg held the camps.
33. Each year during the relevant time period, Ormberg, on behalf of Warrior Industries, communicated with MHS staff and reserved, rented, and paid rental fees for the use of the MHS school facilities for his private business. 

Conclusions of Law

Section 17(c)

34. Section 17(c) of G.L. c. 268A prohibits a municipal employee from, otherwise than in the proper discharge of his official duties, acting as agent for anyone other than the municipality in connection with any particular matter in which the municipality is a party or has a direct and substantial interest.
35. As an MHS School Counselor and Head Coach, Ormberg was, at all relevant times, a Medfield municipal employee as defined in G.L. c. 268A, § 1(g).
36. The rentals of MHS facilities to Ormberg’s private business, Warrior Industries, were particular matters in which Medfield had a direct and substantial interest. 
37. By, each year during the relevant time period, on behalf of his private business, Warrior Industries, communicating with MHS staff in relation to reserving, renting, and paying rental fees for MHS facilities for use by his private business, Ormberg acted as agent for someone other than Medfield in connection with particular matters in which Medfield had a direct and substantial interest.
38. Representing and acting as Warrior Industries’ agent in communications with MHS staff in relation to reserving, renting, and paying rental fees for MHS facilities was not in the proper discharge of Ormberg’s official duties as MHS School Counselor and Head Coach.
39. Therefore, by, while an MHS employee, representing and acting as agent for his private business, Warrior Industries, in relation to reserving, renting, and paying rental fees for MHS facilities, Ormberg acted, otherwise than in the proper discharge of his official duties, as agent for someone other than Medfield in particular matters in which Medfield was a party or had a direct and substantial interest. In so doing, Ormberg violated § 17(c).

Section 19

40. Section 19 of G.L. c. 268A prohibits a municipal employee from participating as such an employee in a particular matter in which to his knowledge he, or a business organization in which he serves as officer, director, trustee, or employee, has a financial interest.
41. The decisions Ormberg made as Head Coach to include information about and recommendations of his private Warrior Industries summer football and fitness camps in his annual presentation to students and parents during Fall Sports Information Night, in tweets, and in emails to parents and students and other school districts, were particular matters.
42. Warrior Industries, a business organization in which Ormberg served as a director and employee, had a financial interest in the particular matters, of which Ormberg was aware, because the inclusion of information concerning and recommendations of his camps would lead to increased attendance at the camps and the payment to Warrior Industries of more attendance fees.
43. Ormberg also had a personal financial interest in these particular matters because his payments from Warrior Industries as Director were made from the proceeds of the camps and increased with additional attendees.
44. Therefore, by, while an MHS employee, including information about and/or recommending his private summer football and fitness camps directly to students and parents in annual MHS Fall Sports Information Night presentations to students and parents, in emails and in tweets, Ormberg participated in particular matters in which, to his knowledge, he, or a business organization in which he served as officer, director, trustee, or employee had a financial interest. In so doing, Ormberg violated § 19.

Section 23(b)(2)(ii)

45. Section 23(b)(2)(ii) of G.L. c. 268A prohibits a municipal employee from knowingly, or with reason to know, using or attempting to use his official position to secure for himself or others unwarranted privileges or exemptions which are of substantial value,[1] and which are not properly available to similarly situated individuals.

Section 23(b)(2)(ii) - Private Business Relationships with Students

46. As a public employee, Ormberg knowingly invited, recommended, and encouraged Medfield students to attend his private summer football and fitness camps by promoting and advertising his camps to students and their parents.
47. Ormberg, as Head Coach and/or School Counselor, had official authority over and/or official dealings with any Medfield student seeking a position on the MHS football team or assistance as a counselor.
48. Such invitations, recommendations, and encouragement of Medfield students under Ormberg’s official authority to enter into private business relationships with him through his business were inherently coercive because students naturally would feel pressured and obliged to enter into the private business relationships, especially those students who desired to be given more playing time by Ormberg as Head Coach. This coercive effect was amplified by Ormberg’s repeated use of the MHS “Warriors” football team name for his private camps and his marketing of them and in the name of his business “Warrior Industries,” all of which strongly implied that the camps were officially affiliated with MHS and the Warriors football team. 
49. Ormberg’s use of his MHS positions to invite, recommend, and encourage students under his official authority or with whom he had official dealings to attend his private football camps was an unwarranted privilege of substantial value because the solicitations resulted in paid attendance at his private camps and benefited him more than $50.
50. Therefore, by, while an MHS employee, inviting, recommending, and encouraging students under his official authority, and/or with whom he had official dealings, to enter into private business relationships with him through Warrior Industries, Ormberg knowingly or with reason to know, used his official positions to secure for himself an unwarranted privilege of substantial value not properly available to similarly situated individuals. In so doing, Ormberg violated § 23(b)(2)(ii).

Section 23(b)(2)(ii) - Private Business Relationships with Assistant Coaches

51. As Head Coach, Ormberg invited and encouraged his MHS subordinates, MHS Assistant Football Coaches over whom he had official authority or with whom he had official dealings as Head Coach, to work at his private summer football and fitness camps and entered into private business relationships with them through Warrior Industries.
52. Ormberg’s use of his Head Coach position to invite and encourage his Assistant Coaches to work at his private camps was unwarranted because such invitations and encouragement of subordinates were inherently coercive.  
53. The unwarranted privilege was of substantial value because the cost of the time, effort, and expense to find and hire other coaches who had relevant experience to work at his private camps that Ormberg saved by hiring his Assistant Coaches was worth $50 or more.
54. The unwarranted privilege was not properly available to similarly situated individuals seeking to hire staff to work at their private camps.
55. Ormberg knowingly used his official position as Head Coach to invite and encourage his MHS Assistant Coaches to work at his private camps.
56. Therefore, by, while an MHS employee, inviting and encouraging Assistant Coaches who were under his official authority, or with whom he had official dealings, to enter into private business relationships with him through Warrior Industries, Ormberg knowingly or with reason to know, used his official position to secure for himself an unwarranted privilege of substantial value not properly available to similarly situated individuals. In so doing, Ormberg violated § 23(b)(2)(ii).

Section 23(b)(2)(ii) - Use of Public Resources for a Private Purpose

57. Ormberg used public resources, including his titles as Head Coach and School Counselor, his school email address, MHS listserv, public presentations, Twitter account, and images of Warrior players and staff to support his private business.
58. Ormberg’s use of public resources to promote his private football and fitness camps was an unwarranted privilege. Ormberg’s use of his Head Coach and School Counselor titles, school email address, MHS listserv, public presentations, Twitter account, the “Warriors” team name, and MHS imagery, created a misleading impression that Ormberg’s private camps were offered through or affiliated with the MHS football program, and the use of the MHS email listserv and public presentations allowed him frequent and direct access to parents and students to promote his private business.
59. Ormberg’s use of his Head Coach and School Counselor titles, school email address, MHS listserv, public presentations, Twitter account, the “Warriors” team name, and MHS imagery in his private business was of substantial value because MHS’ implied endorsement gave Ormberg’s private camps credibility and appeal that they would otherwise not have had.
60. Ormberg’s use of the MHS listserv, Twitter account and public presentations were also of substantial value as the opportunity to market his private business directly to MHS students and their parents was worth over $50.
61. Similarly situated private business owners properly do not have the opportunity to use public resources to promote their private businesses or programs to MHS students and their parents.
62. Therefore, by using public resources to promote his private football and fitness camps, Ormberg knowingly, or with reason to know, used his official positions to secure for himself unwarranted privileges of substantial value that were not properly available to similarly situated individuals. In so doing, Ormberg violated § 23(b)(2)(ii).

Section 23(b)(3)

63. Section 23(b)(3) of G.L. c. 268A prohibits a municipal employee from, knowingly, or with reason to know, acting in a manner which would cause a reasonable person, having knowledge of the relevant circumstances, to conclude that any person can improperly influence or unduly enjoy his favor in the performance of his official duties, or that he is likely to act or fail to act as a result of kinship, rank, position or undue influence of any party or person.

Section 23(b)(3) - Private Business Relationships with Students

64. By entering into private business relationships with students who were under his official authority and/or with whom he had official dealings as School Counselor and/or Head Coach, Ormberg knowingly or with reason to know, acted in a manner which would cause a reasonable person, having knowledge of the relevant circumstances, to conclude that these students could unduly enjoy Ormberg’s favor in the performance of his official duties. In so doing, Ormberg violated G.L. c. 268A,                § 23(b)(3). 

Section 23(b)(3) - Private Business Relationships with Assistant Coaches

65. By entering into private business relationships with Assistant Coaches who were under his official authority and/or with whom he had official dealings as Head Coach, Ormberg knowingly or with reason to know, acted in a manner which would cause a reasonable person, having knowledge of all the relevant circumstances, to conclude that these Assistant Coaches could unduly enjoy Ormberg’s favor in the performance of his official duties. In so doing, Ormberg violated G.L. c. 268A,                § 23(b)(3).

Disposition

In view of the foregoing violations of G.L. c. 268A by Ormberg, the Commission has determined that the public interest would be served by the disposition of this matter without further enforcement proceedings, on the following terms and conditions agreed to by Ormberg:

1. that Ormberg pay to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, with such payment to be delivered to the Commission, the sum of $16,000 as a civil penalty for violating G.L. c. 268A, §§ 17(c), 19, 23(b)(2)(ii), and 23(b)(3);
2. that Ormberg cease and desist from all above-described conduct in violation of G.L. c. 268A; and
3. that Ormberg waive all rights to contest, in this or any other administrative or judicial proceeding to which the Commission is or may be a party, the findings of fact, conclusions of law and terms and conditions contained in this Agreement.

By signing below, Ormberg acknowledges that he has personally read this Disposition Agreement, that it is a public document, and that he agrees to its terms and conditions.

STATE ETHICS COMMISSION

[1] “Substantial value” is $50 or more. 930 CMR 5.05.