DURHAM, N.H. - Daniel Hatzenbuehler, past chairman of E. Ritter & Co., a fifth generation family business, will speak at a joint meeting of the University of New Hampshire CEO Forum and Center for Family Business Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015, at 8 a.m. in Huddleston Hall.

E. Ritter & Co., founded in 1886 in Arkansas and Tennessee, operates two separate divisions: agribusiness, owning and managing approximately 30,000 acres of farmland, and communications, with three rural telephone companies offering traditional "landline" phone service as well as cable TV and high speed internet to 40,000 customers. The company employs approximately 300 full-time employees and has annual revenues of $200 million.

E. Ritter has 45 family owners in the third, fourth, and fifth generations who are geographically dispersed across the United States. It is governed by a board of directors comprised of a majority of independent directors and in 2009 the Ritter family established the Ritter Family Council.

Hatzenbuehler has served on the board of directors of E. Ritter since 1978, and in 1998 joined the company as vice-chair of the board and chairman of the communications division.  In 2001, he was elected Chairman and CEO of the company and in 2013 relinquished the CEO position as a part of a structured succession plan. Joining Hatzenbuehler will be Katy Wilder Schaaf, a fifth generation member of the Ritter family, who is working with the council as the director of family engagement.

The UNH CEO Forum is an outreach program of the UNH Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics serving CEOs, presidents, and senior managers of companies in northern New England. The forum provides its members with opportunities to meet and exchange ideas with their peers in business and industry in an informal setting. The UNH CEO Forum is sponsored by the law firm of Pierce Atwood, Optima Bank and Trust, Sprague Operating Resources, CheckMate Workforce Solutions and Crystalvision. For more information visit http://www.unh-ceoforum.org/.

The Center for Family Business, under the UNH Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics and the UNH Graduate School, is sponsored by Baker Newman & Noyes; Mass Mutual Financial Group; Moitoza Consulting; Management Planning, Inc.; Optima Bank and Trust; and Pierce Atwood. It is a membership program to provide owners and managers of entrepreneurial businesses with an opportunity to exchange ideas and information and to discuss business challenges and solutions. For more information, visit http://www.familybusiness.unh.edu/.

To register or become a member of the UNH CEO Forum or Center for Family Business, contact Barbara Draper at 603-862-1107, or barbara.draper@unh.edu. Please RSVP by Nov. 11, 2015.

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