*12-16-22 - Updated with Candidates - see below for details*

The candidates for the General Membership Director for the USATH Board of Directors are:

• Devin Bartlett
  • My name is Devin Bartlett. I am from Dayton, Ohio. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio working as an Attorney. I have been competitively involved in sports since my youth. I have played basketball at the collegiate level and come from a family of athletes. I have been involved with handball in the US at varying levels throughout the country for 5+ years. In 2019, I was second leading scorer at College Nationals with Ohio State, competed in the Northeast Team Handball League, and competed in the Superglobe Qualifier with Los Angeles Team Handball Club. Since, I have been involved with handball, I train with my local team Columbus Armada and continue to compete with Elite US teams. I have recently competed with NYAC as well as Los Angeles Team Handball. My family has been deeply involved in sports for over 20 years. My father, Brother, and I have been coaching middle school and high school basketball for the past 5 years and have focused on the development of athletes. I am a US Navy veteran where I spent time traveling the world and serving the United States. I believe in honor, courage, and commitment in every thing I do in life. Being involved with USA Team Handball, my goal has been focused on youth, collegiate, and club development. I believe the US is full of the best athletes in the world and top tier talent stateside that is required to dominate handball on a international level. The development of USA Team Handball requires building a national love for the sport. This can be accomplished through advertisement, televising/streaming competitions, promoting local athletes, and collaboration with various brands. Being elected to the Board, I would focus on increasing membership, prioritizing spending to ensure membership is valued by every USATH member, and the development of the best athletes.
• Helena Gustavsson
  • I've been a player with NYC Handball since 2013. We, the women's team, won US Nationals in 2019 and participated in the Super Globe the same year. I also have a championship title from Sweden, my home country where I played handball for 18 years. Now I’m slowly starting to transition from playing into coaching. Outside of handball I work as a journalist, covering American current affairs for Swedish publications. I've also published one book. Before studying journalism, I worked in restaurants. 
    A few issues that I’d love the USATH leadership to work (even more) on:
    – A stronger foundation for beginners, allowing them to – in a safe and fun way – discover handball but also reach higher levels quicker. A few paths: easily accessible coaching and safety guides for clubs and players, coach education, networking in different forms.
    – Start a conversation on how to help our more experienced players and teams develop further. This includes both the National teams and club teams.
    – Increase transparency and communication between USATH and its members, i.e. all the players, coaches, referees, and other volunteers around the country. Explain what USATH is working on currently and long-term. Invite more people to get involved in the growth of our sport. The US handball community is diverse and members might have input, or be able to help, in everything from fundraising plans and media outreach, to player education and club building. We always need more money but perhaps we can also use existing non-monetary resources better. Transparency will increase people’s interest and enthusiasm, I believe.
• Justin Lacche
  • Justin Lacche has been part of the Portland Sasquatch goalie playing squad since 2016 and has been part of multiple Sasquatch Slam tournaments that included Seattle, Vancouver, BC & Salem, Oregon. Lacche has a strong belief in the strong leadership shown by the current USATH executive team, as well as, believes USA Team Handball is positioned to be a viable International/Olympic medalist this decade. Some additional sports leadership context: Named by Business Insider as one of Nike’s top 20 executive talents now leading other emerging market companies, Justin Lacche has a proven growth company executive omniverse track record: Synthesizing brick & mortar, the metaverse and top talent retention to grow revenue, market share and product innovation. Lacche serves in a volunteer, non compensated position, as Commissioner of the Omniverse Sports League & has been Chairman of the Washington County (Oregon) Civil Service Committee for 10 years.
    Lacche's LinkedIn profile is: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinlacche
• Luiza Spicer
  • My name is Luiza Spicer, I’m a member of Philly Handball, in the past I joined the DC Diplomats and the NYC Team Handball. and I’m running for the board of director position seat because I believe my experience (over 20 years as a handball player), drive and ideas can grow recreational and competitive Handball in the USA. Having grown up playing high-level Handball in my home country Brazil, I’ve seen Handball in the US take one step forward then 2 steps back. I see most clubs teams comprised of people like me, people who learned the sport outside the US and wonder why the sport hasn’t caught on. I saw a version of our national team built with athletes, but not experience and I think about what we can do to build the sports at a youth and recreational level to feed our competitive programs. Then I see Pickleball growing exponentially and ask - why not us….why not Handball. I have thoughts and ideas on all these questions and believe my experience as a competitive handball player give me the right perspective to help grow and build the USATH brand.
• Myles Bacon
  • My fellow USATH community members:
    
    We are at a time when we can be glad about the state of our sport. After being involved for over 20 years, I have seen USA Team Handball shrink and grow many times, when many of our best and most established intra-community and international competitions were threatened by lack of interest, support, capital, etc. I'm glad that our national teams are making splashes in international pools.  While we have yet to reach our true potential, we are at a solid foothold from which to build. I'm glad that our collegiate system continues to expand as more exuberant and dedicated leaders have not only built programs, but have also expanded to other communities to grow the sport around them. My years with the Carolina Team Handball program did not mean that my coaching and interactions were limited to Chapel Hill.  Now, in San Diego, I have a new opportunity to bring our sport to the West Coast and its ever-present poli sports culture. For these and other reasons, we can be grateful for our current leadership, as well as those that placed foundations for us to stand upon today. While we have so many great aspects to the sport to be glad about, we cannot be satisfied. We cannot be satisfied in knowing that the American athletic landscape is far more vast and incorporating of the entire human spectrum than most nations in the world. We cannot be satisfied knowing that our potentially best handball players never get the opportunity to see the sport until the end of each Olympic quadrant. I propose that we attack on at least two fronts: grassroots and elite talent. Soccer faced the same types of obstacles in this country 40 years ago, now you would be hard-pressed to find two schools in any community without a soccer program/team.  As well, we need to tap into available elite talent. This doesn't just mean highest-level professional athletes. While we can make appearances at cut days for pro teams, we can also offer our sport up to semi-professional and NCAA graduating athletes with a desire to continue in competitive sports. The time is now to appreciative and glad, but we cannot be satisfied until ALL of our teams, international and domestic, are not only competitive and placing, but that they are funded and supported by a nation and sport community that has been hungry for a new horizon of sporting access and success. We should tap into our own handball community, utilize our alumni across the nation and grow our sport everywhere we can. I am thankful for your time in reading this and for your faith in me as a leader in our sport to be part of making this happen. I am excited to join the current leadership and take our sport to the next levels where we've long known it should be.
• Patrick Jalabert
  • Patrick Jalabert is a mechanical design engineer with a Master of Science degree in civil and structural engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago, IL) and a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering from ENSTA Bretagne (France). He has been working as a product design engineer for Poclain Hydraulics for over six years. In that role, he has successfully managed innovative hydraulic motor design projects for industry leaders such as John Deere, Caterpillar or Bobcat. Patrick has also spent the past seven years in a leadership role within Chicago Inter Handball, one of the country’s most prominent handball organizations. He has contributed his more than 20 years of passion for the sport of handball and his advanced organizational skills to support the continuing development of handball in the Chicago-land area and the Midwest. Most recently, he has driven the development of a Midwest Team Handball League, despite the difficulty in rallying and securing commitment from other organizations within the region. Patrick was appointed to the USA Team Handball Competition Committee in 2014 and took on the chairmanship of the committee in 2017. In that capacity, he has undertaken the ambitious project of continuously updating the USA Team Handball rulebook to reflect the ever-changing landscape of team handball in the United States. In addition, Patrick has supported the implementation of a new membership and event management platform and is contributing to the effort to improve the federation’s tools in that area.

The vote will open on Monday, December 19th at 8am ET and close on Tuesday, December 20th at 5pm ET. The link for the ballot along with the unique voter ID will be emailed to each eligible voter when the ballot opens. See below for full details on the election process.

 

USA Team Handball will conduct an election in the coming weeks for a membership-seat on the USATH board of directors. This is the seat currently occupied by Patrick Jalabert, who is eligible for re-election.

USATH will implement the process outlined below for selecting this seat.

Requirements to Run for Open Membership-Voted Board Seat:

- Qualifications for determining eligibility are outlined in section 6.4 of the USATH Bylaws. For convenience, relevant excerpts are listed at the end of this statement
- All interested candidates must complete this form by Friday, December 2nd: https://forms.gle/vgcAfwhFERpp6t2WA
- Once the online form is completed, the individual will then receive USATH’s Conflict of Interest Statement via DocuSign
- After completing both the form and the Conflict of Interest Statement, USATH’s Nominating & Governance Committee will review the information and approve or deny a candidate’s eligibility based on the qualifications listed below

The voting process:

- The vote will be conducted through an online form on the https://electionrunner.com/ platform, and all members of USATH with current memberships as of Friday, December 2nd will be eligible to vote. Voters will be required to enter a unique, randomly generated voter ID and instructions will be sent to the email associated with each individual’s USATH membership. Any ineligible voters will have their votes dismissed.
- The final list of candidates will be posted on the USATH website and distributed to USATH’s email list no later than Friday, December 16th
- The vote will open on Monday, December 19th at 8am ET and close on Tuesday, December 20th at 5pm ET. The link for the ballot along with the unique voter ID will be emailed to each eligible voter when the ballot opens.
- Results from the election will be posted on the USATH website no later than Thursday, December 22nd
- The term for the newly appointed board member will from the date of their installment through 12/31/2026

Should, for any reason, the election process need to be adjusted once the process has begun, USATH’s Nominating & Governance Committee will review any potential changes. Any approved changes will then be posted to this page.

*Election timeline was extended to allow the Nominating & Governance Committee more time to review the potential candidates.

Section 6.4  Qualifications  
In order to be eligible to be elected or selected, and to serve, as a Director, a person must:
(A) be a natural person eighteen (18) years of age or older;
(B) not be a paid employee or consultant of USATH currently or within the last five (5) years;
(C) be registered as a member of USATH for at least sixty (60) days prior to her or his election, provided, however, that for the sake of clarity this requirement shall not apply to any Independent Director;
(D) not violate Section 6.8 with respect to term limits;
(E) not violate Section 6.11 with respect to organizations potentially competing with USATH; 
(F) not violate Section 8.10.5 with respect to Nominating and Governance Committee members;  [MW: Section 8.10.5 provides: Members of the Nominating and Governance Committee shall be precluded from serving as a Director or in any other USATH capacity, whether governance or on staff, for a period of one (1) full year after their term on the Nominating and Governance Committee ends.]
(G) satisfy at the time of selection Section 6.6(B) with respect to “independence”, provided, however, that for the sake of clarity this requirement only shall apply to an Independent Director; and not be a person having a record of a (i) felony criminal conviction involving theft, financial improprieties and other crimes involving moral turpitude or (ii) SafeSport sanction or provisional suspension or a criminal conviction or other court sanction of similar nature.

Section 6.6 (C) General Membership Directors:  There shall be two (2) General Membership Directors.  Individuals who meet the qualifications set forth in Section 5.1(A)(i) of these Bylaws and individuals ages eighteen (18) or older who meet the qualifications set forth in Section 5.1(A)(ii) of these Bylaws are eligible to run for the General Membership Director position.  Any individual may nominate himself or herself or another member meeting the qualifications and requirements for General Membership Director by providing notice to the Nominating and Governance Committee within the deadline set forth by the Committee.  The Nominating and Governance Committee shall review the nominations and shall disqualify those who do not meet the requirements for the General Membership Director.  The Nominating and Governance Committee shall submit the approved nominations to USATH, which shall conduct an election among these individuals who meet the qualifications described above.  The candidate with the highest number of votes shall be elected as the General Membership Director.