Our Unit is led by a nine person Board of Directors, each of whom is elected for a two year term. This year we have five candidates for five vacant seats.
Every qualified Unit member is entitled to vote. All ballots will be secret and each candidate is entitled to have a witness at the vote tabulation.
Ballot boxes, ballots with the candidates” names and envelopes will be available at the Bridge Center and Unity Community Church.
Voting instructions are printed on the ballots as follows:
Dates: Monday, November 4, through Monday, November 15.
Locations: Bridge Center and Unity Community Church.
Marc Cervellino
I am an avid bridge player, typically playing at the Bridge Center two or three times a week. I consider bridge to be the most enjoyable (and addictive) of all card games, and love the competition and challenge of duplicate bridge. I think the Palo Alto Bridge Club is an outstanding one, with an attractive setting, enjoyable environment, well-run games, exceptionally friendly players, and knowledgeable directors.
I began playing duplicate bridge in college, and continued for several years after graduating school. However, my career and social and family life collided with bridge, and I quit playing for 30 years. After retiring, my fond memories of playing duplicate bridge were too compelling to resist, and in 2015 started playing at The Bridge Center.
I agreed to oversee parking for the 2019 Firecracker Sectional, and found this volunteer activity was truly rewarding. I am running for the Board of Directors because I would like to make more of a contribution to the Unit, to ensure it maintains its high quality, and try to make the Club’s experience even more enjoyable for its members.
I was born and grew-up at the New Jersey Shore (Asbury Park). I attended college at Johns Hopkins University (Economics major) and have an MBA (Finance and Accounting) from the University of Chicago. After graduating school, I worked as a finance manager in the oil (Exxon and British Petroleum) and high-tech industries (Digital Equipment Corporation, Compaq Computer, and Hewlett Packard), retiring in 2012. During that time, I lived in Billings, MT, Houston, Anchorage, San Francisco (1982) and Palo Alto (since 1988).
Shankar Iyer
My first attempt at bridge was in college and it was a total failure. I restarted my bridge career playing bridge during lunchtime at HP. Bridge also helped me find friends outside of my team.
I decided that bridge will be part of my “retirement” plan and I joined the ACBL and the Palo Alto Unit in 2017. I am fuzzy on how I found my first partner, but I was lucky to run into two of the nicest people in the club – Kevin and Paul. Soon thereafter, I found Ann Trueheart through Pianola, and she agreed to play when I had almost no points. Needless to say, she is one of the chirpier members of our Unit and we have fun. Since then, I have met and played with several people and found new friends.
I appreciate the warm and welcoming atmosphere that we have here. The first opportunity for volunteering arose when the club was looking for someone to run the Free Lecture Series. Ann and I ran the free lecture series last year, and we are continuing this year with the help of Maryann Hinden and Judy Huckaby. It has forced me to attend the lectures and helped me improve my game. An additional bonus was that I found my first mentor!
As a Director, I hope to contribute to the smooth functioning of the Unit and bring new members to this wonderful game. In addition to bridge, I volunteer to tutor disadvantaged students in the San Jose area, and I have been learning to play the Ukulele.
Charlene Friedman
I’m a native of Massachusetts and moved to the Bay Area in the mid- 1990’s. I practiced law for over thirty years, first as a litigator in private practice in Boston, and then as general counsel of several biopharmaceutical and medical device companies in Silicon Valley. I have a law degree from Northeastern University and an undergraduate degree in Greek and Latin from Tufts University.
After retiring several years ago, I decided to learn bridge and took a beginning bridge class at the Unit in 2016. I’ve really enjoyed the mental challenge of playing the game as well as making new friends and becoming part of the community at Unit 503.
As a board member, I would be particularly interested in improving the experience of beginning players by looking for new ways to provide partnership and mentoring opportunities.
Gerry MacDonald
I earned my first master points playing duplicate bridge as an undergraduate in college. I played hundreds of hours of bridge and somehow still managed to graduate.
In those days everything was done manually and on paper. The games were held in community centers, churches, synagogues, etc.
We are so lucky at the Palo Alto Bridge center. We have an excellent facility and a wonderful group of members.
I moved to the Bay area five years ago and through the Bridge center I have made excellent friends, played lots of bridge, became a club director, an accredited bridge teacher and recently a Life Master.
Currently on the board, as the Vice President, I have been working to continue our efforts to bring newcomers to the game of bridge and to make our Unit a welcoming place for everyone. I have run one of our Non-Life Master tournaments, and presented a couple of lectures as part of our Tuesday lecture series. I continue to be fully involved in many activities at the bridge center.
I have worked as a volunteer in other organizations, particularly in organizing and running fund raising events and in building charitable contributions.
I hope to use these skills to contribute to the ongoing success of the Palo Alto Bridge center.
Dan Thatte
For the last two years I served as unit president and board member. I am running for this next board term to provide continuity and help to the new president to be elected by the board at the end of this year.
After a long career as an Information Technology executive in the Boston area, Manda and I moved to Palo Alto in 2007 to be close to our children and grandchildren and came to our bridge center to meet new people and caught the Duplicate Bridge bug. In 2010 while playing at a club in Florida, I discovered the Bridge Composer software which significantly improves presentation of the results and lobbied to our club board to implement it here. In 2013-2014 I co-managed the Tuesday Lecture Series and served as a backup for the next couple of years to help out. I also volunteered in 2012 as a mentor for the Saturday Morning learning game and helped with 2016 Firecracker tournament.
I feel that the Unit helped ease the move for Manda and me to Palo Alto by providing an opportunity to meet many wonderful people, mental stimulation and entertainment and would like to see the Unit succeed and grow.