About BNI - Our Directors

"Coach G" Jerry Graczyk - Executive Director

Successful coaching takes a special blend of experience, talent, and patience - blending diverse personalities into a cohesive team with a common goal, and developing strategies for individual performance. Jerry’s awareness of team dynamics has led to the development of his 'Dare to Fail' philosophy, motivating leaders to become risk takers with vision, and stressing balance of positive attitude with progressive goal setting and achievement. Jerry Graczyk's background in athletics, business management, team building and individual development is the foundation on which his coaching skills are built.

Over a decade ago, Coach G than began his affiliation with BNI as a member of the BNI Rainmakers chapter of the Detroit metro area of Michigan. Coach has held numerous chapter offices including that of past president. Coach G became a director and trainer for BNI-MI and now is the executive director and training facilitator for all of Western New York. Coach G has attended over 1000 BNI meetings and has facilitated hundreds of training sessions. Coach conducts multiple MSP (Member Success Programs), advanced trainings and leadership trainings for the benefit of the BNI members within WNY.

Harry King - Area Director

Harry King is professional speaker with a background in business to business consultative sales to professionals and executives. He has 2 degrees in education; Special Education & Elementary Education.

After teaching for a very short period of time, he became the Sales Manager for an international management consulting firm. There, he increased the company’s sales in New York state from 2 million, to over 12 million annually… in less than a year.

Harry spent many years with Verizon SuperPages.com, where he was the number one salesperson worldwide at 526% to quota. He later worked with another online media company, www.findlaw.com and now owns an Internet Marketing consulting company marketing exclusively for www.Thomasnet.com.

At ThomasNet, Harry helps industrial, manufacturers and distributers market their products directly to business decision makers. ThomasNet, a 150 year old publishing company is the nations leading vertical search engine for industry.

Harry is a Director for BNI – Team WNY (www.bninewyork.com). His job is to help grow chapters and teach the concepts of word of mouth and referral based marketing. He is a past President of BNI – Buffalo's First Chapter. In 2005 Harry was named the 'BNI Regional Leader of the Year'.

Harry is also the 'MaryKay–Man', (www.marykay-man.com) one of only a few men in the army of women that that sell the number one brand of skin care and cosmetics in the country.

Harry has been a coach, volunteer and an official for the Special Olympics for 23 years. He has been a volunteer with Junior Achievement, and was nominated in 2003 for the Junior Achievement National Volunteer of the Year Award. He is a recipient of the 'Volunteer Excellence Award' for the largest National Fraternity in the world, Sigma Phi Epsilon.

Harry currently is restoring an early 19 hundreds Arts and Crafts home in North Buffalo. When he has a free moment he loves to cook (mostly because he gets to play with knives!)

His secret to success is to 'Work hard, play hard, and don't take anything too seriously'.

Carl Leas - Area Director

Carl Leas was a charter member of the first BNI Hamburg, New York Chapter in February 2000. In August 2002, he moved to Delevan, New York and transferred to the newly formed BNI Chapter in Springville. In August of 2007, he relocated to Depew, New York and currently is a member of BNI Business Networkers, meeting in Orchard Park. In his 8 plus years of involvement in BNI he has held all Leadership Team Positions as well as all Leadership Team support positions.

In March of 2006, he was offered the opportunity to become a Director for BNI-Western New York. Having never flown before, he attended the week long training in Arizona with several other local trainees and now works with several growing BNI chapters in Western New York.

He has been involved in the office products field since 1967, starting as a stock boy for Ulbrich’s and moved to Pride office Products in November of 1988, where he is currently employed by a former employee from his Ulbrich’s retail days. He has been involved in outside/commercial office products sales since 1979.

He is a Life Member of the NRA and is a certified pistol instructor. In addition he is a member of SCOPE (Shooter’s Committee on Political Education), ATA (Amateur Trap Association) a member of the Board of Director’s of the Alden Rod & Gun Club, and shoots in several competitive pistol leagues in the area. He currently resides in Depew, New York.