Peter Rank, 2015 photo courtesy of ACBL
We heard with sadness of Peter Rank's death. He was a part of USBF from its founding in 2000 until he resigned as USBF counsel in December, 2007 because of possible conflicts of interest between USBF and ACBL.
Peter drafted all of USBF's corporate documents, saw us through initial corporate filings and IRS tax exemption, as well as handling many other legal issue for USBF. He will be missed by all of us, as by so many other bridge players.
The bridge world has lost a talented, charming, wonderful person.
Michael, you will be sorely missed.
Michael most recently represented the USBF in the World Mixed Team Championship in Wroclaw, Poland in 2016, and was a frequent participant in Open United States Bridge Championships.
A brilliant player and a wonderful human being.
At its first meeting of 2017, the USBF Board:
Elected the following officers:
President: Marty Fleisher
Vice President: Josh Parker
Treasurer & CFO: Stan Subeck
Secretary & COO: Jan Martel
Recorder: Jack Oest
Decided to give each member of the Savchenko team a $60 credit to be used for entry fees in any future USBC, because of an incident that occurred at the Mixed USBC for which the Board thought USBF should take some responsibility.
Approved Eldad Ginossar's application for Resident Membership in USBF.
Decided that even though the 2017 Open USBC will be selecting 2 teams for the 2017 Bermuda Bowl, and therefore will have 2 more matches than Open USBCs that select only 1 team, the USBF should continue its commitment to have 120 board matches throughout the Open USBC. Therefore this year's Open USBC will be 14 days long.
There were no petition candidates in the election for new members of the USBF Board of Directors in 2017, so the two candidates nominated by the Nominating Committee have been elected to fill the two spots that will become vacant on January 1st. Congratulations to Marty Fleisher, who will be serving his second year on the USBF Board, and to Dave Caprera, starting his first term. The full Board for 2017, in alphabetic order is:
Dave Caprera
Marty Fleisher
Greg Humphreys
Bob Katz
Brad Moss
Beth Palmer
Josh Parker