Schedule of Events | Workshop Descriptions
Conference Hotel

Kelly Barsdate
Chief Program & Planning Officer, National Assembly of States Arts Agencies

Kelly Barsdate is the Chief Program and Planning officer for the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA), where she’s worked since 1991. Barsdate oversees NASAA’s research, policy analysis and member education programs. She helps state arts agencies to design effective and innovative programs that promote cultural development and make the arts an essential part of community life. Barsdate provides extensive strategic planning consultation, evaluation expertise and facilitation services to foundations and corporate arts supporters as well as public arts agencies at the state and local levels. She is also a popular trainer. She runs an annual “State Arts Agency Boot Camp,” designs NASAA’s conferences, and conducts workshops and training sessions for artists and arts organizations at numerous conferences nationwide.

Prior to joining NASAA, Barsdate was a researcher at Educational Research Services Inc., where her areas of specialty included school demographics, and multicultural education and program evaluation. Her arts background includes formal education in dance, music and ceramics. She is an outdoor enthusiast and avid amateur naturalist.

Wally Bloss
Executive Director Cache Valley Center for the Arts

Wally Bloss is the Executive Director of the Cache Valley Center for the Arts in Logan, UT where he has been since January of 2005. Prior to that he was the Executive Director of the Allied Arts Council in St Joseph, Missouri for 10 years. He has served on boards and committees of several statewide arts organizations, including the Missouri Citizens for the Arts, Missouri Association of Community Arts Administrators, Utah Presenters, and on grants review panels in three states. His favorite was the Missouri Minority Arts Panel in which he was the minority. A self admitted techie, he purchased his first computer in 1979. His goal is to integrate the arts into all areas of the community. He loves the phrase, “Non profit is a tax status, not a management style.”

Nancy Boskoff
Executive Director, Salt Lake City Arts Council

Nancy Boskoff no longer counts the number of years she has worked in the field of arts administration. Suffice it to say that her experience spans decades, and includes positions on the east coast and in Utah. Before she entered the administrative arena of the arts world, she studied and taught modern dance. Currently the executive director of the Salt Lake City Arts Council, she has previously worked at the state level at the Utah Arts Council; at the county level in Maryland; and at the neighborhood level in Washington, DC. Ms. Boskoff recently served on the board of Americans for the Arts, and has participated as a panelist and committee member for many agencies across the country, and as a contributor to several publications. Her focus is on making the connection between artists and the public.

Ruby Chacon
Freelance Community Artist, Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts (MICA) Board Chair/Volunteer Co Director

A native Chicana to Utah, Artist Ruby Chacón, is a contemporary voice in American Art. She received her BFA in painting and drawing in 1998 from the University of Utah. She found her voice in art through the stories of her grandfather, the passion for her community, and her continued work toward access and social change.

Chacón has served on many boards and committees including the Salt Lake City public Library, Spy Hop, and currently serves on the Salt Lake County Art Selection Committee, the Utah Arts Council Art Acquisition Committee, and Neighborworks Salt Lake. She is the co-founder of Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts (MICA) where she volunteers most of her time as an organizer and acting Board Chair. In addition to her community work, she founded an apprenticeship program that teaches burgeoning artists to learn the art of mural making as well provides them with networking opportunities in higher education and the arts community.

Chacón has received many awards including: the Cultural Heritage Award, best self portraits from City Weekly, the Governor’s Mansion award, and the Mayor’s Award. Most recently, she and her partner Terry (Tereso) Hurst received the Bridge Builder Award on behalf of their work with MICA through UNP (University Neighborhood Partnerships). Other recognitions include: one of five Utahns of the Year by the Salt Lake Tribune, one of the twenty most influential Latinos in Utah by Connect magazine. She has been featured in many places such as Delta’s “Sky” magazine, “Bello” magazine and published in “Triumphs of Our Communities: Four Decades of Mexican American Art,” and locally in Salt Lake Magazine.

Pete Codella, APR
Owner / Partner, Codella Marketing

Pete Codella operates Codella Marketing as an independent public relations practitioner. He is Accredited in Public Relations (see praccreditation.org). On behalf of clients, he plays an instrumental role in all aspects of public relations, marketing, advertising and interactive communication. Codella Marketing excels where technology meets the practice of public relations. In short, it assists clients in delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time. Codella’s professional experience includes working in corporate communications, a three-year stint working for a university, and in Las Vegas, serving as general manager for a public relations firm and public relations director for an advertising agency. He is currently on the executive committee engaged in planning the launch of the Salt Lake City chapter of the Social Media Club.

He is the 2007 recipient of the IABC/Las Vegas President’s Award and Communicator of the Year, the highest honor bestowed on a member of IABC/Las Vegas. He has worked for Brigham Young University’s Performing Arts Management where he was responsible for managing, promoting, marketing and booking 16 university performing ensembles. He also served as a tour manager and coordinator on numerous national and international tours. He is a fortunate husband and proud father who enjoys spending time with his young family and their energetic weimaraner.

Shannon Daut
Deputy Director, Western States Arts Federation

Shannon is the Deputy Director of the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF). She is responsible for overseeing the organization's work in the areas of cultural policy and technology. Prior to this, Daut administered WESTAF's presenting and touring grant program, TourWest, and also managed programs in folk and visual arts. Daut has been employed at WESTAF since 1999 and has experience in a wide range of artistic disciplines, including film, visual arts, music, theater and literature. In addition to her work with WESTAF, she has served as a juror for numerous film festivals and was chair of the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver 2005 Film Biennial. Daut holds a Bachelor's degree in film studies from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and is currently pursuing a Master's degree in communication at the University of Colorado, Denver.

Anne Cullimore-Decker
Actor, Director, Teacher, Arts Advocate

Anne is a professional actor who has been seen across the state in theatre, opera, television and film.
Formerly Anne served as a professor and director of theatre at University of Utah as well as a guest instructor in the Honors Department.

As a community leader Anne has donated her time to the Utah Arts Council (Former Chair); Zoo Arts & Parks, Tier I Advisory Council; Now Playing Utah.com; Salt Lake County Fine Arts Board; U. of U. College of Fine Arts; KUED, and KUER;  Salt Lake Acting Company Board. Presently she is serving on the University of Utah’s National Advisory Council.

Anne has been recognized numerous times with such honors as: Governor’s Mansion Award for the Arts (2009), The Madeleine Award for Arts & Humanities(2003), The College of Fine Arts Award (2003), Emeritus Alumni Association(2001), and the Dept. of Communications, Quintus C. Wilson Award (2000).

Barbara Drake
RSVP/Bridges Program Manager, Salt Lake County Aging Services

Barbara has been managing volunteer programs for Salt Lake County since 1991. She developed the county’s intergenerational mentoring program and has supervised 120 volunteers for the past 18 years. In 2001, Barbara also became the manager of the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, a program sponsored by Salt Lake County and the Corporation for National and Community Services. RSVP recruits volunteers who are over 55 and places them in non-profit organizations to help strengthen communities. The Salt Lake County RSVP program has 1200 volunteers placed in 74 community organizations.

Mario Garcia Durham
Director of Presenting & Artist Communities, National Endowment for the Arts

Mario Garcia Durham is the Director of Presenting and Artist Communities at the National Endowment for the Arts.  Mr. Durham was the founder and Executive Director of Yerba Buena Arts & Events (YBAE) in San Francisco.  YBAE produces the annual Yerba Buena Gardens Festival that features more than 100 free presentations per year including performances of the San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Ballet, cultural and community festivals, Latin Jazz Festival, Afro-Solo Festival, music, theater, dance, and children’s and family programs.  The outdoor festival attracts a diverse audience of more than 100,000 people. Prior to founding the festival, Mr. Durham was the Performing Arts Curator and a founding staff member of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.   Mr. Durham also served on numerous boards including the Executive Committee of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters and on the board of the American Arts Alliance. 

Since starting at the NEA in 2004, Mr. Durham has been responsible for a renewed NEA focus on the role of Presenters, Artist Communities, Service Organizations, and Outdoor Festivals, including an upcoming major report on the impact of Outdoor Festivals in the US due in 2010.  He is also responsible for the creation of the American Masterpieces - Presenting program.

Doug Fabrizio
RadioWest Producer and Host

Doug Fabrizio has been reporting for KUER since 1987, and became News Director in 1993. In 2001, he became host and executive producer of RadioWest, a one hour conversation/call-in show. He is also the host of the weekly television broadcast Utah Now on KUED Channel 7, and has served as a guest host of the NPR’s, “Talk of the Nation.” He has won numerous awards for his reporting as well as for RadioWest from such organizations as the Society of Professional Journalists, the Utah Broadcasters Association and the Public Radio News Directors Association. Doug obtained his Broadcast Journalism degree from the University of Utah, with Minors in Theater and Spanish.

Ron Frederickson, Ph.D.
Professor of Theatre Emeriuts Emporia State University: Adjunct Faculty, University of Utah Theatre Department

Dr. Fredrickson holds B.S., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Utah. He served for 27 years as Assistant, Associate, and Professor of Theatre at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas, where he taught acting, directing, script adaptation, interpretation, classical text and voice & diction courses, retiring to his native Salt Lake in 1999.

While a student at the U, he played many roles on the Pioneer Stage and has since directed over eighty plays and musicals, including The Voice of the Prairie (performed at the Kennedy Center for the American College Theatre Festival). He has acted locally for Plan-B, PTC, Babcock, and Westminster as well as for the Senior Theatre Project, and this coming spring he is directing Charley’s Aunt for Pinnacle Acting Company. Ron received the1998 Kansas Governor’s Arts Educator Award, and in 2002 was honored at the dedication of the Ronald Q. Frederickson Studio Theatre on the Emporia State University campus.

Margaret Hunt
Executive Director, Utah Arts Council

Margaret Hunt is the Director of the Utah Division of Arts and Museums and the Executive Director of the Utah Arts Council. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF), chaired the Utah Commemorative Quarter Commission, serves on the board of the Utah Council for Citizen Diplomacy, and is a member of the Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts and Parks Advisory Board. The first woman to chair The Downtown Alliance Board of Directors in 1996, she also served on the boards of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah, United Way of Salt Lake, Repertory Dance Theatre, Ballet West Ambassadors, and KRCL Community Radio. In 1994, she received the Utah Small Cities Award for her contributions to community and economic development in the State of Utah.

Elaine Jarvik
Playwright, Journalist, Author

Elaine Jarvik's play "Dead Right" was produced at the 32nd Humana Festival of New American Plays, in Louisville, KY, in 2008. She is currently a member of the Playwrights Laboratory at PlanB Theatre Company, and has been a journalist with the Deseret News for over 25 years.

Kim Konikow
Founder, artservices & company

Kim Konikow has a varied background in the arts as a presenter, arts manager and administrator. As a consultant through artservices & company for over 28 years, Ms. Konikow has been engaged in projects that facilitate artistic growth and build community with a focus on organizational development. This comprises research, evaluation and reporting; assessments; project and event management; and strategic planning for nonprofit arts organizations as well as independent artists. Work experience includes Executive Director for The Mesa, an arts & humanities residency center in Southern Utah, Executive Director for the Minnesota Dance Alliance; Associate Director – for Art Awareness (NY); and Director of Special Events at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (NY). Ms. Konikow has served extensively as a site visitor and panelist for several regional, state and national organizations and is currently the Chair of the Washington County Arts Council. She holds an MFA in Arts Administration from Brooklyn College/City University of New York.

Jayne Luke
Artistic Director, Walk-Ons Inc.

Jayne has proudly worked as a professional actress in Utah for almost 40 years.  She has played roles at the Grand Theatre, Salt Lake Acting Company, Sundance Summer Theatre, Pioneer Theatre Company, Egyptian Theatre Company in Park City, Hale Center Theatre Orem and Plan-B Theatre Company for whom she had the opportunity of touring "Facing East" to San Francisco and Off-Broadway in New York City.  She recently played Carrie Watts in "Trip to Bountiful"  for the Grand Theatre in Salt Lake City.  As the Artistic Director of Walk-Ons, Inc. she started the Senior Theatre Project which tours plays for, by and about seniors to residential facilities, community and senior centers.  She is happy to participate in plays that value the issues and opinions of older people and considers growing older herself a great privilege.  She loves being a character actress because she doesn't have to diet anymore!

Brian Seethaler
Director, Redirect Community

Brian Seethaler is the managing director at Redirect Community, a Salt Lake firm that develops and implements advanced technology and program planning strategies to help nonprofits communicate with supporters and their communities at large, with the primary goal of increasing community investment in the nonprofit mission.

In addition to his work with Redirect Community, Brian is the founder of Block 29 Creative, a Salt Lake City-based marketing and public project co-op that develops and grows new and existing business models in order to create compelling entrepreneurial business opportunities that benefit local communities. He currently serves as chairman of the board of trustees for KRCL 90.9 Radio and as a member of the executive committee of the board of trustees for the Salt Lake Art Center.

Brian provides strategic consulting for the 337 Project and is actively engaged with a number of local Utah artists and civic leaders promoting The Crandall Street Project, an art installation program to beautify empty storefronts in Salt Lake’s downtown corridor, and ArtExchange, an artist-managed marketing and sales support organization. He just wrapped upa very successful Second Annual Ides of March Madness Book Competition, a charity book reading tournament he founded to raise money to buy books for disadvantaged children and young adults though Salt Lake City’s Affordable Housing Program, and is an adjunct instructor at the University of Utah, where he has developed a new social networking course curriculum for the Department of Continuing Education.

Holly Sidford
President, Helicon Collaborative

Holly is President of Helicon Collaborative, a cultural development company with offices in New York and California (www.heliconcollab.net).  Holly is a strategic planner, program developer and fundraiser with more than 30 years’ experience leading and developing nonprofit cultural and philanthropic organizations.  She has worked as a funder at the state (Massachusetts), regional (New England) and national levels; and has developed programming and management systems at a range of nonprofit cultural organizations in the U.S. and U.K.  Recent clients include the New York State Council on the Arts, Doris Duke Charitable Trust, and Nonprofit Finance Fund, among others.  Prior to founding Helicon, Holly was a Principal at AEA Consulting, an international arts consulting firm; founding President of Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), a ten-year initiative to expand support for creative artists; and Program Director for arts, urban parks and adult literacy at the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund.  Holly holds a BA from Mount Holyoke College and a Management Certificate from Columbia University.  She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and teenage daughter.

Richard Sline, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Communication, Weber State University

Dr. Richard W. Sline spent the first 20 years of his career as an university administrator at the University of Delaware, the University of Michigan, and Weber State University, where he was Dean of Student Life.

After obtaining a Ph.D. in Organizational & Small Group Communication at The University of Utah, Rick returned to Weber State and is now an Associate Professor where he teaches Organizational Communication, Small Group Facilitation & Leadership, Health Communication, Intercultural Communication, and Interpersonal & Small Group Communication.

As an organizational and small group communication consultant, Rick has been designing and implementing organization needs assessments, strategic planning, team building, and conflict management interventions and training for over 20 years.  His former clients include private corporations, health care institutions, nonprofit organizations, and public agencies.  Rick also served as a consultant for a national training organization presenting communication skill building programs to Fortune 500 companies throughout the country.

Rick’s research interests are in the areas of teamwork, group facilitation, and organizational and team commitment.  He has authored articles, book chapters, and conference papers on group facilitation techniques, the effects of emotionality on work team collaboration, and factors influencing member commitment to their work team and organization.

Diane Neri Stern
Director of Office of Cultural Affairs, Weber State University

After graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a BA in Theater Design and Technology, Diane spent happy years free-lancing as a costume and set designer and the multitude of other jobs that paid for life between gigs.  She has worked as a dance company business manager, a costume studio manager, designer and the common slave labor called motherhood. She currently lives in Ogden, Utah, and has been the Director of the Cultural Affairs Series at Weber State University since 1999. She has served as the chair of Utah Presenters, and is currently working to establish the Weber Arts Council, a county wide stand alone agency in Weber County. In addition is a past chair of Weber Pathways and is an avid trail runner. She and her husband, choreographer Erik Stern, have two fine sons, Walker (18) and Cole (14).

Erik Stern
Professor, Dance - Weber State University: Co-artistic Director, Dr. Schaffer and Mr. Stern Dance Ensemble

Erik Stern performed with Tandy Beal & Co for ten years, recently appeared as a guest dancer with Repertory Dance Theatre, and teaches at Weber State University.  A Teaching Artist with the Kennedy Center Partners in Education program, he tours nationally conducting workshops on Arts Integration.  His evening-length work "Demolition Derby-when a mind loses its license to drive" forged collaborations between arts, education, research, corporate and advocacy groups and was performed in New York City in 2007.  Along with Karl Schaffer, Erik co-directs the Dr. Schaffer and Mr. Stern Dance Ensemble which has toured throughout North America and has received over fifty grants, included five from the N.E.A.  Born and raised in Los Angeles, Erik holds a B.A. in Biology from UC Santa Cruz and an M.F.A. in Dance from Cal Arts.  He lives in Ogden, Utah.

Janna Tessman
2009 POL Utah state champion

Janna Tessman is a senior at East High in Salt Lake City. She is the second student from both East High and the classroom of teacher Elaine Turner Lamb to win the title of Poetry Out Loud State Champion.

Janna's winning poems for 2009 included:
“Insomnia” by Dante Gabriel Rosetti
“Memory as a Hearing Aid" by Tony Hoagland
"Lunar Baedeker" by Mina Loy

Ardean Watts
Elder Statesman of Classical Music in Utah

Ardean Watts distinguished career has included:  Associate conductor Utah Symphony Orchestra 1968 - 1979, Musical director, principal conductor, resident conductor or guest conductor for Ballet West 1966 - l984, Official pianist of the Utah Symphony Orchestra 1958 - l979, Instrumental music teacher in the Salt Lake City Public Schools l956 - 1958 (Elementary and Junior High), and the Leader and conductor of dance and show band at Lagoon, Saltair and Rainbow Randevu, Salt Lake City, l955 - l958

For the University of Utah Ardean held many positions including:  Musical Director forUniversity of Utah Theatre 1958 - 1967, Founder, executive director and artistic director of the University of Utah Opera Company 1965 - 1978, Conductor of the University of Utah Symphony Orchestra 1970 - 1972, Acting Chair and/or Chair, Ballet Department 1980 – 1985, University Professor 1984 - 1985, University of Utah Distinguished Teaching Award 1991 – 1992, Professor Emeritus 1994

Ardean’s other activities include: former member and chair of the Utah Arts Council, founder of the Mushroom Society of Utah 1993, and Board of Directors of Hawkwatch International 1994 - 1999.

Joan J. Woodbury
Managing Director, Co-Founder Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company

Joan Woodbury is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and studied as the first Fulbright Scholar in dance with Mary Wigman in Berlin, Germany. She is a retired professor of modern dance from the University of Utah, where she taught for 47 years. Joan has choreographed more than 95 works for Ririe-Woodbury and has been commissioned by the Conservatoire Nationale in Portugal, Outlet Dance Company in Australia, Desert Dance in Arizona, the University of Hawaii and Julliard School of Music plus many others. She has danced and taught workshops and master classes throughout the United States as well as in Portugal, France, Yugoslavia, China, Canada, South Africa, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, England, Ireland, Singapore and Italy. 

Mrs. Woodbury is a recent inclusion in Dictionnaire de la Danse, the prestigious French dictionary of dance. In addition to over a dozen University of Utah Research Grants, plus a National Endowment for the Arts choreographic grant, Mrs. Woodbury has received other celebrated awards including Honors in the Arts awarded by the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, Utah Governor’s Award in the Arts for Arts Education, the Heritage Award from the National Dance Association, the Salt Lake Mayor’s Award, and the Cathedral of the Madeleine Award. She has also been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Southern Utah University and an Honorary Doctorate of the Arts from the University of Utah.  Presently Mrs. Woodbury’s pet project is assisting in the acquiring and reconstruction of the works of American Treasure Alwin Nikolais.

Katie Woslager
Grants and EndowmentManager, Division of Arts and Museums

Katie Woslager is theGrants and Endowment Manager for the Utah Division of Arts and Museums.She has a background in management, human resources, and sales.

Prior to joining the Division, Woslager was Operations Manager for Novo1/Sturner & Klein, worked in personnel administration at Micron Technology, and volunteered at food banks, animal shelters, as well as for community revitalization organizations.

Lily Yeh
Chinese-American artist, social change activist, founder of The Village of Arts and Humanities, and Barefoot Artists.

Lily Yeh is an internationally celebrated artist and award-winning founding Director of Barefoot Artists, Inc. and also founder and former executive and artistic director of the Village of Arts and Humanities.

From 1986 to 2004, with the help of neighborhood children and adults, Yeh has built the Village of Arts and Humanities from an abandoned lot into an organization and a community. She has infused the Village with her own artistic sensitivity and vision, collaborating with other artists and community residents to create a place that brings art into both the physical space and daily rhythms of life.  Under her leadership, the Village has become a national model of community building through the arts. Among many awards, Yeh received the prestigious “Leadership for the Changing World” Award in 2003 from the Ford Foundation.

In 2004, Yeh left the Village to pursue her work internationally under the auspices of Barefoot Artists, which she founded in 2002.  It aims to bring the transformative power of art to the most impoverished communities in the world through participatory and multifaceted projects that foster community empowerment, improve the physical environment, promote economic development, and preserve indigenous art and culture.  Yeh has conducted lectures, workshops and land transformation projects in many places in the world.  Her current program, the Rwanda Healing Project, includes the construction of the 1994 Genocide Memorial and the transformation of a survivors village in the Rugerero district in West Rwanda.

Yeh’s work has gently transcended political, economic and cultural boundaries to inspire pockets of world’s poorest people on three continents in North Philadelphia; Nairobi, Kenya; Rugerero, Rwanda; and Beijing, China to take action and to use the power of art to create hope, change, assets and a sense of future.