Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce elects new board members

The Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce welcomes three new members to the Board of Directors. Newly-elected board members are Lisa Clausen, Darren Layne and Kathryn Ralstin-Leavitt.

There are a total of 12 directors on the chamber board. Four board members per year are elected to three-year terms. Current board member Barbara Turner was re-elected.

Those elected will fill board positions being vacated by Catherine Black, Gary Miller and Peter Storton.

Board members were selected by a vote of the general membership. There were a total of nine candidates for the four open positions. New board members will take their positions on February 1, 2007. They will be officially installed at the Chamber's annual installation dinner on Thursday, February 15, at the new FivePine Conference Center.

The installation dinner is open to both members and non-members of the Chamber.

Lisa Clausen is a former Nike executive and is currently on the Marketing Committee of the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce. She is the owner of Sisters Movie House. She is very active in both the Sisters and Bend communities and is a leader in the Central Oregon "Network of Entrepreneurial Women."

Darren Layne has lived in Sisters for 25 years. He attended OSU and received a bachelor's degree in business as an accounting major. He spent three years as a tax auditor for the Oregon Department of Revenue, and for the past 12 years has been a financial planner working in both Sisters and Bend with Smith Barney.

He is chair of the Sisters Schools Foundation and one of the founding board members. He has also served on the budgeting committee for the Sisters School District for the past seven years. Layne is part owner of Mainline Station, a commercial building and convenience store in Sisters.

Kathryn Leavitt has founded and was president of a women's auxiliary for a Christian unwed mothers' home, has had seven Jenny Craig Weight Loss Franchises in Colorado, has handled the final buildout and selling of a 43-unit townhouse project in the mid '90s, has been an interior designer for model homes in both California and Washington and moved to Bend in 2000.

She became a RE/MAX realtor in 2004 and also does the merchandising and buying for Leavitt's.

Barbara Turner is the owner of Sisters Cascade of Gifts and has been in business in Sisters since 1980. She has served on the chamber board for several years and is the past president and a current board member of the Sisters Rotary Club. She was a member of the board that formed and produced the first Sisters Jazz Festival.

For more information about the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce Annual Installation Dinner contact Jeri Buckmann at 549-0251 or by e-mail at [email protected]