Ex-British MP to Head New Chapman Center

ORANGE —  Sir Eldon Griffiths, a trade specialist who recently retired as member of the British Parliament, has been appointed director of Chapman University’s newly established Center for International Business.

Griffiths, who takes up the post July 1, said he plans to develop commercial databases on Southern California and several foreign markets.

He said he also plans to work with graduate and undergraduate business students at the private university to develop in-depth studies of selected foreign markets that he believes have the greatest potential for trade with Southern California companies.

The information will be marketed to U.S. and foreign companies at a still-undetermined price, he said.

“I’m trying to create a fee-earning resource” for the center that will assist small and mid-size Southern California and foreign companies that can’t afford to conduct their own market studies, Griffiths said.

“I hope to create an information retrieval system in both import and export trade and local and foreign investment.”

He said he wants to prepare market studies of Western European countries and selected areas in Eastern Europe, such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Ukraine. In the Far East, Griffiths will concentrate on Taiwan, Vietnam and the coastal areas of China.

The center will also provide information on economic trends in Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Griffiths, currently president of the Laguna Niguel-based World Affairs Council of Orange County, said he will also deliver a series of lectures on international business at the center and plans to invite foreign business leaders, such as Mexican Commerce Minister Jaime Serra Puche, to discuss business and political issues.

The center will provide Chapman’s business school with the international focus essential for students and the business community, said Richard McDowell, Chapman business school dean.

James L. Doti, Chapman’s president and a specialist in the local economy, said 3.7% of all Orange County workers are employed in export-intensive businesses--such as those in the aircraft, computer and electronic industries--twice the national total.

“Looking ahead, this rising wave of international trade can be expected to serve as an engine of rapid growth,” Doti wrote in the most recent World Affairs Council publication, “Go Global O.C.”

Griffiths said he will continue to divide his time between his country house in Bury St. Edmunds, about 100 miles north of London, and his new home in Laguna Niguel, where he plans to live for most of each year.

Separately, the Stratham Group, a Newport Beach development firm, said Wednesday that Griffiths will join its board of directors on April 24. The group manages apartment houses and develops commercial properties in Southern California.