Meet The Board

Dan Wilson (President)

Emily Dawson (Treasurer)

Eric Ortega (Metro VP)

Amy Green (Downstate VP)

has been active in the chess community for 16 years when her son joined the school chess team in Kindergarten. She has been active in the Bloomington/Normal Area Scholastic Chess Association for 13 years serving as President for the last 10 years. This has afforded her the opportunity to organize tournaments at both the local and state level. She partners with the local Parks and Recreation to ensure chess is offered as an activity to engage new players. In addition, she is active with both IESA and IHSA in their chess activities.

Patrick Cohen (Secretary)

has been involved in chess in the Greater Peoria Area for several years as both a player and instructor. He assists in teaching four after school chess clubs and a youth chess club that meet weekly. He currently serves as the interim treasurer on the board of the Greater Peoria Chess Foundation. He is a Local Tournament Director having helped organize and direct multiple state tournaments in Peoria. When not busy with chess, Patrick enjoys umpiring youth baseball and watching his favorite baseball team, the New York Yankees.

Larry Cohen

learned to play from father (Davis) and brother (Howard). First rated tournament in 1974 at Governors State University, which was mostly composed of Park Forest Chess Club (PFCC) players. Scored 1 point out of 5 games.

Directed first tournament even before being a tournament director. PFCC had about a half dozen players that were also Tournament Directors (TD), but none were available for the first round of the once-a-week tournament that was being held. I was asked to do the first round, and was told it was easy to do. I ended up directing the entire event, and that is how I was suckered into becoming a TD.

Eventually I started being a TD for events outside of the PFCC which included the US Amateur Team Midwest (now known as USAT-North), US Senior, US Amateur North, and the US All-Grade (K-12) held in Oak Brook Illinois. That led me into being a TD for scholastic events as well as adult events. That led me to being a TD for the Chicago Public Schools scholastic events as well as the Kasparov All-Girls national championships, both of which are organized and run by Renaissance Knights Chess Foundation. I have organized a number of national and non-national chess events in the Chicago area and in other states. That included in the 90s an Illinois Chess Tour event in Hammond, Indiana.

Joseph Guth

I started playing chess in sixth grade in 1973, right after Fisher won the World Championship. My skills grew under the guidance of my first coach, Joe Drennan. Life events caused me to take a lengthy break from chess. During another life change, I became a teacher. After seeing “Searching for Bobby Fisher”, I started a chess club and began coaching and playing. Even at my present age of 61, my knowledge is still growing.

I am presently entering my third year of three as a NICL Representative for the Chess Advisory Board to the IHSA. I served as the Vice President of the Rockford Chess Association for two years. We ran quarterly tournaments for eight years. I supported local efforts to Rockford Chess Challenge Tournaments for ten years. This group also brought the National Youth Action Championships to Rockford three years in a row, starting in 2001. We, as an organization, placed a Chess Set in Every Classroom in four Counties. In 2020, I re-started the Historic Ken-Rock Chess Club.

As a coach, I have led elementary/primary school chess clubs for at least 18 years. I was fortunate to have two players win national championships and two teams finish 2nd and 3rd in the National Youth Action Tournaments (1 in Rockford and 1 in Tennessee). I presently coach at Rockford Auburn High School, where we were the first area team to win a Sectional Plaque. I have been coaching at the high school level for five school years.

Eva Harrison

was born and raised in Germany and came to the U.S. in 1995 with a degree in translation from the University of Mainz-Germersheim. After working at the Chicago Waldorf School for three years, she switched to self-employment and now handles legal, financial and business translations out of her home in Beverly (Chicago). Eva is married to John and they have five children, including two sets of twins. Soon after her then third-grader David had joined the Keller Chess Club (Christopher later followed), Eva was invited by a friend to the South Suburban Chess Club in nearby Oak Lawn. While not a complete beginner, in May 2012, she joined her first chess club and played her first tournament chess challenging her sons to beat her rating. When her time allows, she also frequents other chess clubs in the area or plays table tennis. Eva is the co-captain of the Pawns, one of the teams in the West Division of the Chicago Industrial Chess League (CICL), and became a board member of the ICA in April 2017.