Eight new members joined the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce board of directors. Here’s a brief look at the new members:

Bennett Griffin

Griffin is president and CEO of Griffin Technologies, 916 Mass., Suite 200. Griffin has more than 13 years experience in executive management in the technology industry. He was the 1994 Small Business Assn. Young Entrepreneur of the Year award winner and has won the America’s Top 10 Collegiate Entrepreneur award from the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs. He serves on the board of directors for Kansas International and the Lawrence Technology Assn.,

Griffin serves on the board of trustees for the Kansas University Center for Research and the board of advisers for KU’s Information Technology and Telecommunications Center.

Before founding Griffin Technologies, Griffin founded Gtronics Software, a custom software development and integration firm with a focus on market research software, and worked as a software developer for KU’s Information Telecommunication and Technology Center.

He is a 1998 graduate of Leadership Lawrence.

Dave Loch

Loch, of Progress Vanguard, has a bachelor’s degree in engineering technology from Kansas State and a master’s from Northwest Missouri State University. He has had various roles in manufacturing management and support since 1985. He is a member of the Jayhawk Breakfast Rotary Club, Member of the Business Retention Task Force and City of Lawrence.

Pat Flavin

Flavin, a member of the Lawrence chamber since 1977, is owner and president of Lawrence Realty Associates, and owner/broker of Baldwin Realty Associates and Eudora Realty Associates. He previously worked at Calvin, Eddy and Kappelman Real Estate as a salesperson and managing broker.

Flavin has been president of Lawrence Board of Realtors and has been involved in Pelathe District Committee, the Boy Scouts, scoutmaster of Troop 55, director of Kansas Association of Realtors and Corpus Christi parish building committee.

Flavin is a graduate of Leadership Lawrence and Leadership Kansas. He was the Kansas salesperson of the year for his profession in 1983.

His present duties involve real estate brokerage operations and land development, most notably Westwood Hills in northwest Lawrence with more than 350 homes.

Sue Hack

City Commissioner Sue Hack was a classroom teacher in all four public junior high schools in Lawrence and retired from teaching ninth-grade civics at Southwest Junior High. She began teaching at South Junior High School in 1971 and taught English, geography, American history and American government. She served as student council sponsor, Fellowship of Christian Athletes sponsor and assistant track coach.

Hack also has worked with United Way as a building drive chair and Friends of Hiratsuka as the educational coordinator. Her work with Friends of Hiratsuka has afforded her the opportunity to take students to Hiratsuka, one of Lawrence’s two sister cities on three separate occasions.

She was awarded the Lawrence Schools’ Foundation educator of the year award for 1999, the Wal-Mart teacher of the year award for 1999 and she was an Athena Award nominee in 2000. A member of the Leadership Lawrence Class of 2000, Hack serves on the Leadership Lawrence Board.

Ralph Gage

Gage is chief operating officer of The World Company, which owns the Lawrence Journal-World and Sunflower Broadband. He also the secretary-treasurer of WorldWest Limited Liability Company, a related company that publishes semi-weeklies and small dailies in Colorado and Arizona. From 1981 to 2004, he was general manager of the Lawrence Journal-World and The World Company.

He served as moderator of First Baptist Church in 2002 and 2003 and was co-director of the church’s building fund drive in 1998. He has been a KU First campaign committee member for Kansas University’s School of Journalism since 2002. He was a member of the Kansas-Lower Republican River Basin Advisory Committee from its inception to 1994. He was a member of the Douglas County Development Inc. board and executive committee from its inception to 1994.

Karen Schuyler

Schuyler is plant manager of Astaris. The Lawrence plant produces phosphate and phosphoric acid products used in variety of applications from baking goods, beverages, processed meats, poultry and seafood, nutrition fortification, pharmaceuticals, oral care, water treatment and cleaners. Schuyler has 24 years of mining and manufacturing experience. Prior to coming to Lawrence in September 1998, Schuyler was the plant manager at FMC’s Kemmerer, Wyo., facility and had various engineering and management positions at FMC’s underground mining operation and chemical processing plant in Green River, Wyo. Schuyler serves on the Lawrence Education Achievement Partners and Junior Achievement Boards. She also serves on the Kansas Commission for Emergency Planning and Response.

Ted Haggart

Haggart is president and chief executive officer of Douglas County Bank. He previously worked as senior vice president at Commerce Bank in Kansas City, Mo., as community bank president and chief executive officer at Commerce Bank in Manhattan; senior vice president and investment officer at First National Bank and Trust (now Sunflower Bank) in Salina.

He has served as assistant professor of economics at Kansas State University; executive director of Kansas Council on Economic Education; senior economist for the minority staff U.S. Senate Budget Committee in Washington, D.C.; economist and staff counsel for Sen. Robert Dole’s U.S. Senate Budget Committee, Washington, D.C.; adjunct professor in fiscal and monetary policy at George Washington University; a computer system analyst for the U.S. Navy.

He is on the board of directors at United Way of Douglas County, the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation, Lied Center of Kansas, Spencer Museum of Art and Lawrence Regional Technology Center. He is on KU’s business school advisory board.

Tim Van Leer

Van Leer is executive director of the Lied Center. He previously led performing arts programs at El Camino College, Torrance, Calif.; Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio; and the Bayfront Center, St. Petersburg, Fla.

Van Leer has led workshops on marketing the arts, facility and ticket office operations, customer service and presenting the performing arts. He serves on the board of the Association of Community Arts Agencies of Kansas; co-chairs the 2004 Midwest Arts Conference in Kansas City; is a member of Lawrence Rotary and the Kansas University speakers bureau.

Van Leer is a past president of the National Association of Performing Arts Presenters and was a member of the National Task Force on Presenting and Touring the Performing Arts. He is a recipient of Arts Presenter’s Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award for his leadership and service to the field.