The Chinese Club of San Marino recently announced the new members of its board of directors, who will serve between 2023 and 2025. The new board members, consisting of multiple generations of residents in the San Marino community, will serve three-year terms on the 13-member board.
“This year’s board includes a mix of two board members who are second-generation residents of San Marino as well as two board members who have returned to serve on the board again 25 years after they have already served the board,” said Alan Chen, president-elect for the current board. The new board members include Edith Lai, Theresa Ku, Sabrina Lin and Patric Pan.
Representing the new and much younger generation of the club is Edith Lai, a second-generation board member. Lai has been a San Marino resident all her life, attending Carver Elementary, Huntington Middle School and graduating from San Marino High School in 2007. Lai graduated from California State University, Los Angeles with a degree in business administration with an emphasis in marketing and currently works the public affairs office of Los Angeles County Fire Department, where she handles logistics support for the surge of fires throughout the county and state.
“I have always been attracted to helping people and being a marketing major taught me to understand people and their wants and needs,” Lai said.
Similar to Lai, Pan is a lifelong resident of San Marino and a graduate of San Marino High School. Pan works as a project manager for Pan Construction and hopes to bring fresh perspectives to the board as someone who attended the Chinese School and the club’s events through his father’s (T.C. Pan) involvement in the club as a former president.
In contrast, Ku and Lin are returning to serve on the board a second term after they formally began their service of the club more than 28 years ago.
Ku, who served on the board between 1995 and 1997, worked tirelessly as a volunteer principal of the San Marino Chinese School in the 2006-07 school year. During that time, she established, working in conjunction with the San Marino Unified School District, the first AP Chinese class for the school district, enabling students in the community to pursue advanced Chinese studies.
Lin also served on the board the same time as Ku. Lin served as the chair for the club’s vaunted Mid-Autumn Festival (MAF) in 1995, which boasted an attendance of more than 1,000 guests that year. Follow that success, Lin served nine consecutive years on the MAF committee focusing entertainment by bringing the community, including the city council members, school board, teachers and members of the club, to perform during the MAF. Lin also served as the Chinese School’s treasurer for six years and continues to help put together programs for the club.
“The 2023 board is very special because it combines the collective experience of multiple generations of board leadership into one governing body,” Chen said. “For example, Edith’s mother, Elaine Hong, and Patric’s father, T.C. Pan, both served on the board previously. They grew up as kids in San Marino watching their parents serve on the board and are now doing their part in making this community special. This new generation of leaders will work with the returning board members to ensure the club will continue to meet its mandate within the community.”
Similar to the returning board members Ku and Lin, Chen will be the first board member of the club to serve a second term as the club’s president.
