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The President

Eric has been married to Nancy since 1981. They have two daughters and four grandchildren. Besides bridge his other hobbies are golf, wine and marathon running. Running his own IT-services business since 1984, Eric had to minimize his bridge activities until he sold his company in 2001. At that time the company, Infotech, employed a staff of 175. From 2014-2018 Eric has been municipal executive councillor with finance, economics and IT in his portfolio.

Eric Laurant (1960) has been involved in bridge activities for 40 years. He started playing bridge in 1977, being the first student playing at the local club.

In the early ’80s the Dutch federation (NBB) appointed him as an authorized bridge-teacher and director. Later that decade, Eric played in de highest Dutch competition for teams.

In 2002 Eric picked bridge back up again as an official, becoming a member of the Dutch topbridge committee. From 2004-2012 he was a board member of the Dutch Bridge Federation. In 2006 he was appointed captain of the Dutch open team, a position he ended in 2012. From 2008-2012 Eric accepted responsibility of all Dutch topbridge activities, setting up an organization with captains, trainers and supportive personnel of all categories (open, women, juniors, schools, girls) and transforming the open team from part-time amateur players to full professionals. In 2011 he captained the winning Bermuda Bowl team.
As a NBB board member Eric has been responsible for many projects within the federation aside from top level bridge:

IT:
NBB-software based on Bridgemate, costless available to all clubs associated with the NBB;
Results of all local, district and national competitions available on the internet nearly real-time;
NBB-portal and myNbb, freely accessible by clubs and individuals.
Commercial:
Partnering the NBB with Stepbridge, BridgeWeb, Bridgemate, Berry’s Internet Club;
Takeover of a privately held bridge shop by the NBB.
Chairing several Committees:
75-year anniversary tour visiting 25 districts with full day festivity programmes;
Restructuring statutes NBB and all districts transferring voting rights from districts to clubs;
World Bridge Championships 2011 in Veldhoven.

EBL
Eric has been an EBL executive committee member since 2012 and never missed a meeting
of the executive committee. Since 2015 Eric has been the chairman of the EBL Investigation
Committee. Since 2018 Eric has been Treasurer, successfully setting up a totally new
bookkeeping system.

WBF
Eric is a member of the WBF Executive Council and Chairman of the WBF Investigations
Committee since November 2020.

ACBL
Since 2018 Eric has been a member of the ACBL Anti Cheating Committee

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