Board and Staff

  Board Members

  • President — Lana Freeland
  • Lana is a retired School Nutrition Director. She enjoys driving her BMW X3 and her husband’s BMW 128i convertible.  Lana loves to travel, enjoys cars, loves to shop, and enjoy life with Tom, her husband, and with friends.
  • Vice President — Steve Poteet
  • Steve is a mechanical engineer, graduate of the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. He “retired” from TVA in 2009 and has been a consulting engineer since. In his current job, Steve travels all over the U.S., and has been in Canada a couple of times working at hydropower plants. Much of his consulting work has been in the Pacific Northwest and California. Not a huge fan of flying, when time permits, he loves to make cross-country drives and one of his bucket list items is a land-drive from Tennessee to Alaska. He has driven through every state except for Alaska and Hawaii. Steve was raised a “Pontiac guy” and comes from a family that took road trips. He acquired his first BMW at 49 years of age (a 1997 318ic convertible, 5-speed manual) and was immediately hooked on the marque. Since then he has owned a few BWM’s including this classic gold 1987 L6, pictured at a recent Cars and Coffee at BMW of Chattanooga.  Steve is also a member of the Mercedes-Benz Club of America and owner of yet another fine classic, a red 1985 500SL.
  • Secretary — Donna Horn
    • Donna is a retired teacher and enjoys riding with her husband Ray in their Silver M5. When she retired, she came close to becoming the proud owner of a BMW Z4, which she liked very much,  However, her life long dream car, while similar to the Z4 2 door roadster, is manufactured by the “other German Car Company”. She chose the other car and it is an AMG.
  • Treasurer  — Rob Mitchell
    • Rob’s passion for the BMW brand began more than 50 years ago when he bought his first BMW—a 1968 BMW 1600. That passion would lead him to join the BMW CCA in 1970 and in 1972 to employment as a salesperson at a Boston-area BMW dealership. Following the establishment of BMW of North America in 1975, Rob was hired by the company as a sales training manager, based out of the corporate headquarters in New Jersey. Subsequent promotions added motorcycle marketing and corporate communications to Rob’s BMW work experience, and he retired as the head of corporate communications in 2008 after 32 years with BMW NA. Rob and his wife Susan relocated to East Tennessee shortly thereafter and spend their time between a lake home on Watts Bar Lake and their downtown Chattanooga home. Rob is a noted BMW historian and avid collector of BMW memorabilia. His current fleet includes 3 BMW automobiles and 4 BMW motorcycles.
  • Members at Large
    • Member-at-Large (appointed)                                          Cindy Wilson
    • Member-at-Large (appointed)                                          Nancy Thompson
    • Crisis Communications Coordinator (appointed)             Art Von Werssowetz
    • Founder and former President (appointed)                      Brenda Terrell

Event Staff

  • Driving Event Coordinator  Steve Poteet -Steve is a mechanical engineer, graduate of the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. He “retired” from TVA in 2009 and has been a consulting engineer since. In his current job, Steve travels all over the U.S., and has been in Canada a couple of times working at hydropower plants. Much of his consulting work has been in the Pacific Northwest and California. Not a huge fan of flying, when time permits, he loves to make cross-country drives and one of his bucket list items is a land-drive from Tennessee to Alaska. He has driven through every state except for Alaska and Hawaii. Steve was raised a “Pontiac guy” and comes from a family that took road trips. He acquired his first BMW at 49 years of age (a 1997 318ic convertible, 5-speed manual) and was immediately hooked on the marque. Since then he has owned a few BWM’s including this classic gold 1987 L6, pictured at a recent Cars and Coffee at BMW of Chattanooga.  Steve is also a member of the Mercedes-Benz Club of America and owner of yet another fine classic, a red 1985 500SL.Steve always has a blast on the club drives and is looking forward to shepherding the club to some nice destinations.

Communications Team

  • Webmaster
  • Social Media Curators
    • Facebook Manager – Brenda Terrel

Recent Posts