Lisa Chandler, co-chair of our Suds & Buds fundraiser, has been deeply involved in Norfolk and is energized by volunteering. When she first joined our Rotary Club, she immediately jumped into the club fund raising events and co-chaired our March Madness fundraiser in 2006-2007.  When the club decided to initiate our Suds & Buds fundraiser last year, Lisa stepped into the leadership role and within eight weeks pulled together the event, which was sold out and netted $15,000!

 

Lisa's early years were as part of a globe-trotting family. She was born in French Morocco, Africa into a military family. Her father’s love of flying with the U.S. Air Force took the family to Colorado, California, Germany, Georgia and Virginia. Lisa says that Norfolk was the first town that she really considered to be her hometown, and she has been deeply involved in the local community ever since.

 

In addition to being executive vice president of Nancy Chandler & Associates, Lisa chairs the Crispus Attucks Cultural Center Board, is on the executive committee of the Greater Norfolk Corporation, chairs the ODU Real Estate Foundation and serves on the local Susan G. Komen Foundation board and the Virginia Arts Festival board.  She was a director of Heritage Bankshares  until it was recently acquired by Southern Bank.

 

Her college experience started at Virginia Tech where she was part of the dental hygiene program. After a year, she decided to enroll in ODU to be close to her high school boyfriend. Not wanting to lose credit for those Virginia Tech courses, she earned a degree in environmental health.

 

Although Web Chandler was a couple of classes ahead of her at ODU, their paths didn’t cross until Lisa started working at the Coach House on Colley Avenue.  She and Web got married, and have two daughters, Whitney who is the director of communications for Nancy Chandler & Associates, and Brynn who lives in San Francisco.

 

When her daughters were small, Lisa was busy not only taking care of them but also involved in volunteering in the community.  One day, her mother-in-law, Nancy Chandler, suggested that she could  earn some pocket money for her efforts and why didn’t she come to work for the real estate company.  Lisa, who was resolute in never working for the family business, finally agreed to work part time.  That lasted all of two weeks. Today she is the community liaison for the firm, director of relocation and managing broker for the property management department.

 

Both of Lisa’s in-laws, Nancy and Web Chandler, were active in our club. Web was the club president (1964-1965) while Nancy was the first female member. Surprisingly, they did not encourage Lisa to become a Rotarian probably because of the  prohibition at the time of people being in the same industry as club members. Instead, it was Kay Kemper who suggested to Lisa that she become active in Rotary. Lisa loves the size of our club and comments that it has so many interesting people.   She found the club to be fun, liked the programs, and admittedly is a glutton for community service.  She joined Rotary in July 2005, served as club president in 2012-2013, and is a Paul Harris Fellow plus 4.