GATEWAY CHESS LEAGUE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Tournament Director Floor Chief
Bob Howe has been a tournament chess player since 2002, and has served as a tournament director since 2005. He is a certified United States Chess Federation senior tournament director and serves on the board of the Missouri Chess Association. He currently works with the Gateway Chess League as a tournament director floor chief during Saturday events.
Emily followed her children into a chess tournament several years ago and fell in love with how much her children loved it. She has been volunteering ever since and in the Fall of 2023 she became Secretary of the League. Emily began her professional career in Emergency Management and quickly shifted to Lobbying and Government Relations. After meeting her husband and starting a family, Emily left her previous career to become the special assistant to two small dictators.
After graduating from Saint Louis University High School, Gabriel Boyd went on to earn his bachelor's degree from Kansas University, majoring in accounting and minoring in computer science. He later attended Harris State College, majoring in education and minoring in mathematics, after which he taught mathematics at McKinley CJA from 1996-2001. He became a chess instructor in Meramec Community College's College 4 Kids program in 1997 and continued teaching chess with that program for twenty years.
He took on the role of director with the En Passant Chess Club in 2001, teaching, coaching, and leading his staff in teaching chess to over 700 students weekly. Under his leadership, EPCC's members have won 8 Missouri state individual championships, produced 3 (K-12 U1200) national champions and 19 Missouri state chess championship teams, and won the (K-9) 2007 Open National Action Chess Championship.
He's served as the Gateway Chess League Vice President since 2008.
Howard Granok is treasurer of the Gateway Chess League. He's coached chess at Crossroads College Prep since 2000. Howard is a graduate of Emory University (BS) and Washington University (PhD). He teaches Biology, AP Biology, AP Environmental Science, Anatomy/Physiology and outdoor education at Crossroads College Prep, and a genetics class at Washington University. He is married to Jodi Granok, a certified professional organizer.
After four years of military service in the Marine Corps, Lucas Spriggs attended Southern Illinois University, graduating magna cum laude with a major in English education and a minor in speech communication education. He has been teaching English at Belleville West High School since 2008, and coaching the chess club since 2013. He earned his master's degree in education administration from Lindenwood University in 2017. He began volunteering for the Gateway Chess League in 2023. He lives in Belleville Illinois with his wife and three children.
After graduating from the Lindbergh school district, Sam Kassis attended college locally at Webster University and earned his bachelor's degree in administrative management. Sam has been working as an internal auditor for Midwest Petroleum since 2020. He taught chess in the Lindbergh school dristrict from 2003 until 2013, and since 2019, he's continued teaching chess at New City Schools and Maplewood Richmond Heights. Sam has served as the president of the Gateway Chess league since 2013 and currently lives in the South County area.