OFC: David Splane may have been humble and kind in his early days but by the time he made CO he was arrogant and disdainful. His wife, Linda, seemed to be the total opposite, perhaps she was compensating for his rudeness.
I had him as CO for three years when I was in French. There was one family he really liked in the hall, and he basically ignored everyone else. Did you ever have COs or DOs who could remember everyone's name after only one or two visits? Splane was not that kind. He wouldn't even bother asking the publishers names most of the time. If you were a pioneer, which I was at one point when he visited, then he'd condescend to speak with you for a minute or two. When I went off the pioneer list I may as well have been dead by the time the next CO visit rolled by.
A man who would gladly be strapped to a log and passed through a sawmill to show his allegiance to a few men and a group of buildings on the East coast of the US. A small man with a large ego.
Actually, and maybe I'm wrong, but Splane struck me as the type of person who would offer someone else as the sacrifice to the sawmill, while he would stand by and give the most eloquent eulogy imaginable.
He wasn't all bad. As a speaker he was marvelous.