November 18, 2008

Russel Statham, a business administration student in the Craig School of Business at California State University, Fresno, has been appointed by Gov. Schwarzenegger to the California State University Board of Trustees.

Statham, 21, is one of two student trustees, joining Curtis Grima of California State University, Sacramento, who is in the second year of his two-year term. Statham will serve as the nonvoting student trustee this year and Grima as the voting student trustee. Statham becomes a voting member July 1.

Statham joins two other Fresno State alumni on the Board of Trustees: Carol Chandler and Pete Mehas. And he follows another Fresno State alumnus in the student trustee position. Jennifer Reimer, now a law student at University of California, Davis, just completed a two-year term.

He will be seated at the trustees’ meeting Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 18-19, in Long Beach.

Statham is a member of the Smittcamp Family Honors College at Fresno State. He served as an elected and appointed member of Associated Students Inc. leadership from 2006 to 2008 as vice president of finance and CFO, senator and chief of staff.

As University Affairs chair of the California State Student Association, Statham has directed projects and addressed concerns of the 400,000 students in the CSU system’s 23 campuses.

In 2000, Statham co-founded BAS Automation and Technical Services, which merged in 2005 with BAS Technologies, a company he co-founded in 2002. He has been CEO of BAS Technologies Inc. since the merger.

Statham, who is a Democrat, was chosen from among three finalists for the student trustee post. He receives a $100 per diem for his trustee service.