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Speaker Biographies
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2003 Convention Overview Home - 2003 Convention Home
- Ramona Baker
- Benjii Bryan Bittle
- Earl Blumenauer
- Bill Bulick
- Eugene Carr
- Randy Cohen
- Eduardo Diaz
- Craig Dreeszen
- M. Christine Dwyer
- Kristy Edmunds
- Joan L. Eisenstodt
- Robert L. Lynch
- Julia Fabris McBride
- Richard Florida
- Rick Foster
- Mark J. Fraire
- Dana Gioia
- Bill Keens
- Dave Lawrence
- Kathryn J. Lee, M.D.
- Abel Lopez
- Charles McDermott
- Surale Phillips
- Rick R. Prickett
- Brendan Rawson
- Michael Rohd
- Ellen Rosewall
- Donald Sampson
- Felicia W. Shaw
- Russell Simmons
- Kim Stafford
- Barbara Steinfeld
- Mayumi Tsutakawa
- Roberta Uno
- Alene Valkanas
- Patricia R. Washington
- Jerry Yoshitomi
- Sally Zinno
Ramona Baker
Ramona Baker is the executive director of the Arts Council of Indianapolis, where she will soon celebrate her tenth anniversary. Her diverse background includes managing theatre companies in New York and Washington, DC, and teaching arts management at Florida State University. In the 1980s, she represented the United States in cultural exchanges to the U.S.S.R., China, Australia, and Northern Ireland. She is also a published and produced playwright and frequent guest speaker.
Benjii Bryan Bittle
Benjii Bryan Bittle is arts administrator in the Tacoma Economic Development Department. An accomplished performing and literary artist, he has been instrumental in fostering a local renaissance and advancing Tacoma as a cultural tourism destination.
Earl Blumenauer
Congressman Earl Blumenauer (OR-3)has devoted his entire career to public service, serving as a state legislator, a county commissioner, a city council member, and now as a member of Congress. He has been an active leader on behalf of the arts, having introduced the first public art legislation at both the state and Multnomah County.
Bill Bulick
Bill Bulick founded Creative Planning, Inc. in 1999 after nearly 20 years in high level nonprofit and arts leadership roles. From 1989 to 1999 he was executive director of the Regional Arts & Culture Council of Portland, Oregon, and was formerly founding program director of Pioneer Courthouse Square and producing director of the World Music Festival. He is a former member of the Americans for the Arts board and former president of the United States Urban Arts Federation.
Eugene Carr
Eugene Carr is the founder and president of Patron Technology and author of Wired for Culture: How E-mail is Revolutionizing Arts Marketing. Patron Technology is an arts e-marketing software and consulting company which offers PatronMail, an e-mail marketing system. CultureFinder.com, which he founded in 1995, is an award-winning arts information portal on the Internet that publishes bi-weekly e-mail newsletters for a subscriber base of 50,000 arts patrons in eight cities.
Randy Cohen
Randy Cohen is vice president of research and information at Americans for the Arts, where he has produced such projects asArts & Economic Prosperity, the national study on the economic impact of the nonprofit arts industry in the United States; directed the Institute for Community Development and the Arts; and published numerous reports about local arts agencies, united arts funds, arts education, and public and private sector support for the arts.
Eduardo Diaz
Eduardo Díaz is theformer director of cultural affairs for the City of San Antonio. He provides consulting services in the areas of organizational assessment and business/strategic planning, cultural and heritage tourism, youth arts programs, and arts-based economic development strategies.
Criag Dreeszen
Craig Dreeszen, Ph.D., is an educator, consultant, and writer who works nationally with arts and other community organizations to do organizational development and strategic planning, collaborative planning, program evaluation, and community cultural planning.
M. Christine Dwyer
Chris Dwyer is senior vice president of RMC Research, a firm specializing in research, evaluation, and technical assistance in education, health, social service, media, and culture. She has a long track record of pro bono service in the arts and is currently chair of both the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and her city's cultural commission. Her particular interests are in cultural policy and measurement issues as they relate to culture.
Kristy Edmunds
As both an artist and a curator, Kristy Edmunds has been a leading advocate for furthering innovative and provocative contemporary art in the Northwest region and nationally. In recognition of her “exceptional personal courage and creative vision in support of free speech,” she received the 1998/1999 Freedom of Expression Award from the Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Joan L. Eisenstodt
Joan Eisenstodt, an aging baby-boomer with some X-Gen tendencies, is a facilitator, trainer, and meeting and event manager with a lifetime of experience. She founded the Washington, DC-based Eisenstodt Associates, LLC, in 1981. In addition to her work with clients, she moderates a multi-generational listserv for the meetings and hospitality industry. Her passion for communications and working in interconnected groups led her to take a greater interest in generational characteristics and cross-generational communications.
Robert L. Lynch
Bob Lynch is the president and chief executive officer of Americans for the Arts, the national organization dedicated to promoting arts and culture through leadership, advocacy, visibility, professional development, research, and information. For 29 years, he has worked with local arts agencies to strengthen community arts activity and has been a speaker and trainer on leadership, management, creativity, and community cultural planning.
Julia Fabris McBride
Julia Fabris McBride is deputy director for programming at the Illinois Arts Alliance Foundation, where she organizes statewide and regional meetings, leads lobbying training workshops, and manages the organization’s Arts Leadership for the 21st Century, Local Arts Network, and Working Together programs. She is vice president of the National Community Arts Network and has served on grant review panels for organizations that fund the arts, environment, and social change.
Richard Florida
Richard Florida is the author of the groundbreaking book, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life, published by Basic Books in June 2002. The book has been widely acclaimed in The New York Times and other major media for showing how the most profound changes in our workplace, culture, and everyday lives from the rise of creativity as an economic force. He is the H. John Heinz III Professor of Economic Development at Carnegie Mellon University, where he is founder and co-director of the Software Industry Center. He has been a visiting professor at MIT and Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Florida is co-author of five other books and more than 100 articles in academic journals. He is a founder and principal of Catalytix, a strategy-consulting firm that works with regions, governments, and corporations around the world. He earned his bachelor's degree from Rutgers College and his Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Rick Foster
Dr. Rick Foster is vice president for leadership at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan. His programming duties include guiding Foundation efforts in rural development, leadership development, and food systems. He joined the Foundation in 1991 as a visiting professional while on sabbatical leave from the University of Nebraska, where he served as a professor of agricultural education. Prior to joining the Foundation, he worked in international development activities in Africa and Central America, and was instrumental in establishing the School of Agriculture for the Humid Tropics (E.A.R.T.H.) in Costa Rica.
Mark J. Fraire
Mark Fraire is the grants program and services specialist for the Wisconsin Arts Board. He has served on numerous panels and boards, both locally and nationally. He is an active member of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, and for the past two years, he has helped create and lead the arts exhibitions and the arts panel presentations for the National Council of La Raza’s annual conferences. He was also a 1997 recipient of the Coming Up Taller Awards for his community service to arts and education.
Dana Gioia
On January 29, 2003, Dana Gioia was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the ninth chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. He is an internationally acclaimed poet, librettist, educator, and former business executive. An influential critic, he is best known for his 1991 book, Can Poetry Matter?, about the role of poetry in contemporary culture. His third full-length collection of poems, Interrogations at Noon, won the 2002 American Book Award. His anthology, Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama, co-edited with X. J. Kennedy, is a best-selling college literature textbook. His poems, translations, essays, and reviews have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Book World, and The New York Times Book Review. Trained in music, he served as the classical music critic for San Francisco magazine from 1997 to 2002. In 2001, he founded “Teaching Poetry,” a conference dedicated to improving high school teaching of poetry. For 15 years, he developed his writing while working as an executive for General Foods in New York, eventually becoming vice president of marketing.
Bill Keens
Bill Keens is the president of Wolf, Keens & Company, a full-service consulting firm created in 1997 that specializes in working with cultural organizations and other nonprofits. Prior to founding his firm, he was the executive director of the American Council for the Arts, which subsequently merged with the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies to form Americans for the Arts.
Dave Lawrence
Dave Lawrence is the director of grants services and program development for the Arts Council of Indianapolis. He is the former executive director of the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir. In addition, his arts management background includes work with Indianapolis Opera, Clowes Memorial Hall, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Indiana University Auditorium, and the INB Broadway Series. He is an arts management fellow of Chorus America and serves on the Emerging Leaders Task Force of Americans for the Arts.
Kathryn J. Lee, M.D.
Kathryn Lee is an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She chairs the Professional Education Committee of the Northern California Psychiatric Society. She has a private practice in the Bay Area, and specializes in treating anxiety, stress management, and working with artists.
Abel Lopez
Abel Lopez is president of the board of directors of the MidAtlantic Arts Foundation and chair-emeritus of the D.C Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He is also immediate past president of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture and the Non-Traditional Casting Project. In 1995, he was honored by the Theater Lobby with a Mary Goldwater Award for his work as a director and producer, and in 1996 he received a Leadership Award from The Association of American Cultures.
Charles McDermott
Charles McDermott has more than 20 years of experience in the fields of grantmaking and arts administration. He joined the Massachusetts Cultural Council in 1992 and has served as deputy director since 1995. He has also held positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the National Arts Stabilization Fund, the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Garden in Vancouver, B.C., and several public radio stations.
Surale Phillips
Surale Phillips has 15 years experience working with cultural organizations nationwide. She specializes in conducting research to inform planning. Recent clients include United Arts of Central Florida, Greater Columbus Arts Council, Fresno Arts Council, and Maryland Citizens for the Arts.
Rick R. Prickett
Rick Prickett is the director of cultural tourism for the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau. He is a founding member of the California Cultural Tourism Coalition and of the Cultural & Heritage Tourism Alliance. He also sits on the board of directors for the California Assembly of Local Arts Agencies, and on the board of directors for the National Council of Destination Organizations, an Industry Council of the Travel Industry Association of America.
Brendan Rawson
Brendan Rawson is the director of community and neighborhood arts of Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley. He oversaw the development of Cultural Initiatives’ Creative Community Index: Measuring Progress Towards a Vibrant Silicon Valley. Currently, he is overseeing research on active participation in the arts among Silicon Valley’s immigrant communities.
Michael Rohd
Michael Rohd is the founding artistic director of Sojourn Theatre in Portland, Oregon. He is the recipient of a 2001 TCG Next Generations award alongside frequent collaborator Ping Chong. He is the founding artistic director of Hope Is Vital (an international theatre and community dialogue resource), an artistic associate with Cornerstone Theatre Company in Los Angeles, and the author of Theatre for Community, Conflict, and Dialogue (Heinemann, 1998), a book used as a textbook internationally.
Ellen Rosewall
Ellen Rosewall is assistant professor of arts management at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and past president of the Wisconsin Assembly for Local Arts. She has consulted with arts organizations throughout the Midwest on audience development and planning issues.
Donald Sampson
Donald Sampson, a recipient of the Ford Foundation's 2002 Leadership for a Changing World award, belongs to the Wallulapum tribe. As executive director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, he works to restore salmon runs and boost tribal economic health. Chairman of the Umatilla tribe from 1993 to 1997, he helped reverse a severely depressed tribal economy, integrating it into a rapidly developing regional economy. He is a skilled biologist who actively participates in tribal ceremonies and rituals.
Felicia W. Shaw
Felicia Shaw is program manager for the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, which she joined in 1995. A graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in communications, she began her career in the arts in 1985 as a commercial art dealer but soon refocused her work around service to the nonprofit arts and culture sector as an arts marketing consultant. She is a frequent panelist and presenter on cultural tourism, particularly in neighborhoods and with special populations.
Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons, media mogul and entrepreneur, is the master visionary who has long shaped the cutting-edge of hip-hop. Over the course of the last 15 years, he has immersed hip-hop into every facet of media and pop culture: in music with Def Jam recordings; in film with Simmons/Lathan/Brillstein/Grey (SLBG) and Def Pictures; in television with HBO’s The Def Comedy Jam and Russell Simmons Oneworld Music Beat; in fashion with the Phat Farm brand; and in publishing with Oneworld Magazine. Today, he has continued the evolution of hip-hop by launching major ventures in the fields of advertising (dRush) and the Internet (360hiphop.com). Along with his brothers, in 1995 he founded the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing disadvantaged children with significant exposure and access to the arts. Rush Philanthropic is also dedicated to offering exhibition opportunities to emerging artists of color.
Kim Stafford
Kim Staffordis the founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College, where he began teaching in 1979, the summer his father retired. He holds a Ph.D. in medieval literature from the University of Oregon, and is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose. He has worked as an oral historian, letterpress printer, photographer, teacher, and as the literary executor of the Estate of William Stafford.
Barbara Steinfeld
Barbara Steinfeld is the director of cultural tourism for the Portland Oregon Visitors Association. She was the fourth cultural tourism professional in the country to be hired by a visitors bureau. She has a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Northwestern University, 20 years of tourism marketing experience, and an appreciation for all art forms. She moved to Portland in 1997 from Florida where she worked in international tourism for nine years, particularly in Latin America and Europe, with the Tampa Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Mayumi Tsutakawa
Mayumi Tsutakawa manages the Wallace Arts Participation Initiative for the Washington State Arts Commission. She formerly managed the Cultural Resources Division for King County (Arts Commission-Historic Preservation Office) and was director of external relations for Wing Luke Asian Museum (Seattle).
Roberta Uno
Prior to Roberta Uno’s arrival at the Ford Foundation, she was the founding artistic director of the New WORLD Theater, in residence at the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and a professor in the University’s Department of Theater. Founded in 1979, New WORLD Theater has earned a national and international reputation as a visionary cultural institution dedicated to works by artists of color.
Alene Valkanas
For 17 years, Alene Valkanas has directed the Illinois Arts Alliance Foundation and its sister organization, the Illinois Arts Alliance. She is chair of the State Arts Advocacy League of America, a board member of the Donors Forum of Chicago, and a founding board member of Charity Lobbying in the Public Interest. Her work at the Alliance was preceded by 14 years in public relations, program development, and cultural affairs, and by several years as an educator in the field of English and art at the secondary school level.
Patricia R. Washington
Patricia Washington is vice president of grants and development for the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC), Philadelphia’s official regional tourism marketing agency. Before joining GPTMC, she worked for five years as a program officer at the William Penn Foundation, where she developed citywide initiatives focused on community arts and youth development.
Jerry Yoshitomi
Jerry Yoshitomi reads, researches, provokes, and speaks on the “New Fundamentals of Cultural Participation.” He has recently been engaged by the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Heinz Endowments, Haas Funds, Arts Midwest, Western Arts Alliance, and several university-based performing arts presenters to develop and present new methods to increase participation in the arts. He was formerly the executive director of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles, served on the California Arts Council, and was vice president/director of operations for the Western States Arts Foundation (WESTAF).
Sally Zinno
Sally Zinno directs a consulting practice that works with the leaders of arts and cultural organizations and their funders to strengthen governance, management effectiveness, and financial results. She is a senior associate with National Arts Strategies (formerly National Arts Stabilization), where she directed the Columbus, Ohio, stabilization project. Before starting her consulting practice, she directed the administrative and financial operations at the Delaware Art Museum and the Harvard University Art Museums.
