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ABA Announces 2017 Board of Directors Election Results
The results of balloting by the bookstore members of the American Booksellers Association to elect a new president, vice president/secretary, and three directors to serve on the ABA Board are now official.
Robert Sindelar of Third Place Books, with three locations in the Seattle, Washington, area, has been elected to a two-year term (2017–2019) as ABA president. Jamie Fiocco of Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has been elected to both a two-year term as vice president/secretary and a second three-year term (2017–2020) as a Board director, positions she will hold concurrently.
Elected to serve their first three-year terms as directors are Kenny Brechner of Devaney Doak & Garrett Booksellers in Farmington, Maine, and Christine Onorati of WORD in Brooklyn, New York, and Jersey City, New Jersey.
Continuing on the Board will be Kris Kleindienst of Left Bank Books in St. Louis, Missouri; Valerie B. Koehler of Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas; Chris Morrow of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont, and Saratoga Springs, New York; Pete Mulvihill of Green Apple Books, with two locations in San Francisco, California; Annie Philbrick of Bank Square Books in Mystic, Connecticut, and Savoy Bookshop in Westerly, Rhode Island; and Jonathon Welch of Talking Leaves Books in Buffalo, New York.
Leaving the current Board will be Betsy Burton of The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah, who is at the end of a two-year term as ABA president, and John Evans of DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland, Larkspur, and Brentwood, California, and Matthew Norcross of McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey, Michigan, who are finishing their second three-year terms as Board directors.
The Board of Directors transition will take place at ABA’s meetings in conjunction with BookExpo 2017 at the Javits Convention Center in New York City from Wednesday, May 31, through Friday, June 2.
All ABA members are encouraged to attend the Annual Membership Meeting to be held from 3:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. on June 1. The meeting agenda will include the formal announcement of ABA’s election results, reports from the president and CEO, a membership and financial update, and the opportunity for members to bring old and/or new business to the attention of the Board of Directors.
The Membership Meeting will be preceded by ABA’s Town Hall meeting, which provides booksellers with the opportunity to express their concerns and share ideas with ABA Board members and staff in a less formal setting. The Town Hall will take place from 2:15 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. Both meetings will be held in Room 1E12/1E13/1E14 of the convention center.
To provide an opportunity for as many members as possible to speak during the Town Hall, a sign-up sheet will be prominently displayed starting Wednesday morning, May 31, in the ABA Member Lounge (Booth 721 on the trade show floor). In addition, this year for the first time, members who do not wish to speak at the Town Hall but would like the Board to discuss certain issues can add those topics to a separate sheet in the lounge. Questions about the Town Hall and/or the Annual Membership meetings should be addressed to Membership and Marketing Officer Meg Smith.
ABA’s Consolidated Financial Statements (2016 and 2015) and Form 990 will be available to members in the Governance section of BookWeb,org prior to BookExpo; watch for an announcement in an upcoming edition of BTW.
Information about all of ABA’s programming at BookExpo is available here.