BOARD AND STAFF

THE HONORABLE EDWARD A. POWELL, JR.

In January 2002, Edward A. Powell became the President and CEO of the USO World Headquarters, the only global civilian organization supporting the U.S. military. President Franklin Roosevelt founded the USO in 1941.  Today the USO operates more than 130 centers around the world.  U.S. and overseas USO facilities from San Diego to Bagram, Afghanistan were visited more than 5 million times each year by Service members and their families.

    • Under Ned Powell’s leadership the USO saw significant expansion.  The operating budget expanded from less than $40 million a year to almost $250 million in 2008.  USO’s active donor base grew from 200,000 to more than 1.5 million individuals.  Today the organization enjoys a solid balance sheet, as well as strong relationships with Congress and the Department of Defense.

    • While a member of the Defense Business Board, Mr. Powell developed the concept of concurrent credentialing for service members to translate their military training into civilian credentialed careers.  He chaired the Board Study that led to Congress passing legislation approving acceptance of military training for US Government certification

    • Prior to joining the USO, Powell served as Assistant Secretary for Management (CFO) and Deputy Secretary (Acting) at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).  During his tenure as CFO, the VA achieved its first-ever clean audit opinion.  Secretary Powell oversaw the implementation of a purchase card system, the development of the department’s first budget accountability reporting (the VA was one of two federal departments to be graded “A” by the Office of Management and Budget and the Congress), and he played an instrumental role in the integration of financial, operational, and inventory management of the VA’s huge healthcare system. Through improvement in its prescription formulary and prescription mail-out program, the VA saved almost $650 million annually in drug costs, while improving patient service and safety.

    • Mr. Powell is a Board Member of the Telluride Arts Foundation and is a Member of the Patient Advirosy Board for the Telluride Medical Clinic.  Mr. Powell consults on healthcare, nonprofit management, CEO coaching, and veteran related matters.

CHRIS HARDEN, VICE-PRESIDENT

Chris Harden spent his entire 26-year career in energy commodities trading. During his 16 years in Philadelphia, Harden was active as a board member and volunteer for Play On Philly, a charitable organization promoting social change through music education. POP serves over 300 inner-city children in Philadelphia. In 2019 he moved to Telluride to pursue his passions for outdoor adventure and music composition/performance. As an active musician, Harden is passionate about helping to build and sustain music culture while serving the local community.

    • Born in Racine, Wisconsin, he eventually moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma where he helped build one of the largest energy trading companies at the Williams Companies. In 2003 he moved to the Philadelphia area to found an energy trading company for Susquehanna International Group.

    • He also served on the Executive Committee as the Colorado affiliate more than quadrupled its budget, staff, and operations in six years. Prior to the ACLU, Basit served as Treasurer of the Board of Directors of KGNU Community Radio in Boulder, CO (where he resided before moving to Telluride in 2014), one of the nation’s largest non-profit community radio stations serving the Denver Metro area, and oversaw the purchase and establishment of the 1390AM signal to further extend the organization’s reach.

TODD BROWN

Todd Brown has a Professional Engineering degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and a Masters in Business Administration (Finance) from Washington University in St. Louis. As a manufacturing executive, he worked for Fortune 50 companies in the US and Europe before moving to Telluride. He served on the Telluride Town Council and as Mayor Pro Tem for 8 years, is a professional ski instructor, and is active on several cultural and environmental non-profit boards in addition to having served on the Telluride Arts board since 2006.

ASHLEY HAYWARD

For the past three decades Ashley Hayward has been dedicated to the arts through fine arts education and working with various museums and galleries. These endeavors and the relationships that developed eventually led her to the acquisition, with her husband, of the long-established Telluride Gallery of Fine Art.

Ashley is indebted to her father, James Hayward (contemporary artist and fine arts professor) who began taking her to museums as a toddler and showed her how to see the world through the lens of art.

    • At Telluride Gallery of Fine Art with fellow artists (emerging to established), they curated dream shows, brought in artists from all over the country, and partnered with local schools to create educational opportunities for students and our community.

    • They augmented these shows in a variety of ways with artist profile videos, films, interactive installations, onsite library and resource center, presentations and discussions.

    • They partnered with local festivals and events to increase visibility towards their collective goals and promoted their shows all over the country.

MICHELINE KLAGSBRUN

Micheline is a visual artist whose multi-media work focuses on transformation and displacement. She is President and co-founder of CrossCurrents Foundation (CCF) which as part of its mission sponsors art to promote social justice. In addition to CCF, she serves on several boards, including the Phillips Collection (DC), Transformer (DC), and Telluride Arts (CO). Through the Corcoran Outreach program, she served for a number of years as a mentor for inner-city youth. In 2016, she and her husband found and fell in love with Telluride and Telluride Arts, and have been living here part-time ever since.

    • She has exhibited widely and is in private collections nationally as well as in Europe and the Middle East.

    • Born and raised in London, graduate of the University of Cambridge, she received a clinical doctorate in psychology (D.C.P.) from the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. Upon moving to the USA she continued to work as a psychologist in the Center for Family Research at GWU Medical School.

    • For many years she also co-chaired the Forum for the Psychoanalytic Study of Film and edited its journal “Projections”. Her published writings have been largely in the field of film and psychoanalysis.

Diana Farrell

Diana Farrell is an independent director and trustee of various organizations, including the Urban Institute, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Institute for Applied and Practical Mathematics, a National Sciences Foundation Center at the University of California Los Angeles, and until recently, eBay.  She was the founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the JPMorgan Chase Institute.

    • Previously, Diana was a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, where she served on the Partner’s Evaluation committee, and was the founder and Global Head of the McKinsey Center for Government as well as the Global Head of the McKinsey Global Institute.  At various points in her McKinsey career, she was a leader in the Public Sector, the Financial Institutions Sector, and the Strategy practice. 

    • Additionally, Diana served in the White House for over two years as Deputy Director of the National Economic Council and Deputy Assistant to the President on Economic Policy. In that capacity she led the interagency process on behalf of the President on a broad range of initiatives, including: financial reform, which resulted in the Dodd Frank Act; housing finance policy; innovation and competition policy.

    • She was a member of the Auto Recovery Task Force overseeing the restructuring of the auto sector.

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS

  • Ken Meredith

    Entrepreneur

  • Shasheen Shah

    Author

  • Sean Mahoney

    COMPOSER

  • Christopher Ho

    EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

STAFF

GENE SOBCZAK, INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Former Chief Executive Officer of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, Gene is a turnaround executive with 30 years' experience in performance improvement, staff development and business restructuring in nonprofit, commercial and public sectors. Accomplished communications and community engagement professional with proven commitment and achievement in the advancement of diversity, equity and inclusion.

gene@telluridearts.org

CAMILLE LEWIS, OPERATIONS DIRECTOR

A Georgia native, Camille moved to Telluride in 2014 to see what magic the San Juans held. Deviating from her background in agriculture and wildlife management, she has since built a career centered in operations and venue management. When she's not in the office, Camille enjoys live music, a good book, and reveling in the outdoors.

camille@telluridearts.org

Melannie Tavano, Marketing and Development Manager

Proudly Mexican and currently living in the beautiful mountains of Telluride, Mel has over six years of experience as an engagement strategist, people and culture leader, and internal communications manager. She is known for her leadership in driving cultural transformation and making a significant impact on employee engagement through inclusive communication strategies, team development, and customer experience. Her passion for fashion led her to start her own business, becoming a fashion coach.

melannie@telluridearts.org