CLC board chair moves up teaching ladder

College of Lake County board Chairman William Griffin has made a mark at another two-year school where he’s been a full-time instructor since 2009.

Griffin, a business professor, was granted tenure Tuesday by the River Grove-based Triton College board of trustees. He also chairs Triton’s accounting and business department.

Officials at Grayslake-based CLC announced Griffin’s Triton achievement Friday. They said Griffin accomplished a rare community college feat: graduate, elected trustee and tenured faculty member.

Griffin said in an interview when he began at Triton in September 2009 that he hoped it would provide him with added perspective for his elected position. He said he’s pleased to have been granted tenure at Triton.

“Each year I vote on tenure decisions for CLC faculty members,” Griffin said. “It was an interesting experience, to say the least, to be on the other end of the decision-making process waiting for the Triton board’s approval. I’m honored that they granted me tenure.”

Griffin, a Lake Forest resident, worked as chief operating officer of New York-based XTnergy after retiring as general manager of ComEd’s Chicago Region. He gained teaching experience at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, Carthage College in Kenosha and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

After graduating from CLC in 1977, Griffin received a bachelor’s degree and a masters of business administration from DePaul University. He received a doctor of education degree from National Louis University in Chicago in May 2011.

He encountered a bumpy road in his CLC board career in 2007, when faculty senate leaders criticized a plan to install him as the school’s president.

About 300 faculty members, students and others jammed a meeting room ready to fight the plan, but the effort ended when the veteran board member removed himself as the lone candidate for the presidency, now held by Jerry Weber.