Public directors for 2011 include: Michael Braude, past president and chief executive officer of the KCBT; Barry L. Flinchbaugh, professor, agricultural economics, Kansas State University (KSU); James Lammle, who retired from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 2006; and Dennis Gartman, Editor/Publisher of The Gartman Letter and advisor to Horizon's Alpha Gartman Fund, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Braude, who has been appointed to a new two-year term, served as president and chief executive officer of the KCBT from April 1984 through October 2000 before retiring. Braude currently serves as a director of Midwest Trust Company, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.; MGP Ingredients, Inc., Atchison, Kansas, U.S.; and Kansas City Life Insurance Company, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. He is a trustee of Midwest Research Institute, Kansas City, and a trustee of the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System.
Flinchbaugh, who has been appointed to a new two-year term, joined the KCBT board of directors in 1997. He teaches a course in agricultural policy and lectures throughout Kansas and the nation. He joined KSU in 1971, and has conducted statewide public affairs educational programs in such areas as financing state and local government, food and agricultural policy, use value appraisal of Kansas farmland, and water policy. Flinchbaugh served for five years as chairman of the prestigious Alfred M. Landon lecture series on public issues, and served for four years as special assistant to the president of KSU. Flinchbaugh currently serves as chair of the Farm Foundation board of directors.
Gartman, who is serving the second year of his two-year term, has been in the markets since August 1974. He was an economist for Cotton, Inc. in the early 1970s, analyzing cotton supply/demand in the U.S. textile industry. From there he went to NCNB in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S., where he traded foreign exchange and money market instruments. In 1977 he became the chief financial futures analyst for A.G. Becker & Company in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. He was an independent member of the Chicago Board of Trade until 1985, trading in treasury bond, treasury note and GNMA futures contracts. In 1985, he moved to Virginia to run the futures brokerage operation for the Virginia National Bank, and in 1987 he began producing The Gartman Letter on a full-time basis and continues to do so. Clients of The Gartman Letter include many, if not most, of the leading banks, brokerage firms, mutual funds, hedge funds, energy trading companies, and leading grain trading firms. Gartman served as a KCBT director from 2006 to 2007.
Lammle, who is serving the second year of his two-year term, joined the KCBT board of directors in 2008. He has had a life-long association with agri-business. In 1974 he began his career as a market analysis economist with the Commodity Exchange Authority, which was the predecessor agency to the CFTC, the current U.S. futures market regulatory agency. He transferred to the CFTC in 1975. As a market analysis economist, Lammle reviewed new contract proposals and rule changes for compliance with regulations. He transferred to the Kansas City Office of the CFTC, where he assumed responsibility for market surveillance of the contracts traded on the KCBT and MGE. In addition to his market surveillance activities, Lammle provided market analysis for the CFTC Division of Enforcement and the FBI in commodity-related cases. Lammle retired from the CFTC in April of 2006.
