WaterTower Theatre Appoints Nine New Board Members and a Slate of New Executive Officers

WaterTower Theatre has announced the election of nine new Board Members, as well as a new slate of Officers. The Board voted unanimously to install the following Executive Committee Officers: President Paul Shultz, Vice President Stan Graner, Vice President Grace Daniels, Treasurer Philip Longacre, and Secretary Karol Omlor.

The Board was pleased to re-elect Rosalind Benjet, Barbara Daseke, Buddy Frazer, Corky Pledger and RoBert Mayer, Jr. for their continuing terms as directors.

WaterTower Theatre also welcomes the appointment of nine new Board Members: Bruce Arfsten, Nancy Brenner, Brian Ellard, Ornella Ellard, Timothy P. Horan, Christopher Mabile, Jennifer Martinez, Craig Sutton, and Ron Whitehead.

WaterTower Theatre's Board of Directors consists of leaders in the fields of business, publishing, education, law, finance, community activism, real estate, and the arts who volunteer their time and expertise on behalf of the organization. The newly elected members will join current Board Members Rosalind Benjet, Blake Clemens, Grace Daniels, Barbara Daseke, Buddy Frazer, Stan Graner, Philip Longacre, RoBert Mayer, Jr., Kathleen A. Messina, Jimmy Niemann, Karol Omlor, Corky Pledger, and Paul Shultz.

WaterTower Theatre's future is bright" remarked Board President Paul Shultz. "The combination of our new class of directors with the highly experienced remaining board members is a match made in heaven. We do wish, however, to extend our gratitude to the outgoing Chairman Derek Blount. Derek has provided outstanding leadership and guidance to our Board and the theatre for over a decade. His passionate and long-standing involvement has been an inspiration and a model to all of us. He's been a great mentor to me and the Board and I will miss working with my friend."

"In my time serving on the board of WaterTower Theatre, I've witnessed amazing stories told on our stage accompanied by equally incredible stories of the lives touched by this theatre," said Derek Blount, Chairman emeritus. "The company has almost doubled in size since I began, but despite that growth, the 'WaterTower experience' feels more intimate than ever. This sleepy theater company has evolved into a major part of the fabric of the DFW arts scene, and I could not be more excited for the future of the company with Artistic Director Joanie Schultz and new Managing Director Nick Even at the helm. My deepest gratitude goes to the phenomenal board members with whom I've served over the years. WaterTower Theatre is in great hands moving forward."

"WaterTower Theatre's Board of Directors led by Paul Shultz is one of the most highly effective and engaged non-profit boards I've ever had the pleasure of working with," said Artistic Director Joanie Schultz. "The new class of directors and officers gives me such confidence going into my first full season with WTT, and I feel with the board behind my vision our future is bright."

About The President of the Board:

Paul Shultz is the General Manager of Slalom's South Region businesses. He has decades of experience as an executive leader, business strategist, systems integration, and organizational improvement professional.

Before joining Slalom, he served as The Managing director of enterprise applications at Protiviti, a global business consulting and internal audit firm. Previously, Paul was The Managing vice president of the Southwest market at Hitachi Consulting. He held a number of leadership positions prior to Hitachi Consulting including CIO of Edisto Resources and NRM Energy. He holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in business administration from Baylor University. Paul joined the WaterTower Theatre Board of Directors in 2015.

About the New Directors:

Bruce Arfsten's interest in the arts was mostly at arm's-length until about seven years ago when he became involved in the Addison city government. Bruce served on both the Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council, and during that time developed an appreciation for the value that the arts in bring to a community. Bruce's commitment to WaterTower Theatre comes from the belief that most highly regarded cities around the world have an active, visible and vibrant arts community that has economic impact as well as entertainment value.

Nancy Brenner's professional experience includes that of a senior level position with a federal government agency, where her duties included strategic planning, operations and financial management and oversight. She left her career of 30+ years in 2010 to become a realtor. Nancy loves playing tennis and spending time with her husband of 25 years, Jerry, and her two grown sons Travis and Carson. Nancy began volunteering for theatre companies in her twenties, and has had experience with Theatre Three, Dallas Theater Center, and many others. She became very active in several young adult groups supporting the arts including The 500, Inc., Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Over the years, she has enjoyed season tickets to WaterTower Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, and Dallas Summer Musicals, in addition to visiting performances at many other venues, both in Dallas and while traveling.

Nancy is an avid home chef, and joins the board as a Co-Chair of Women of WaterTower Theatre (WOW!).

Brian Ellard is a business executive with a passion for the arts. He has been an active artist most of his life, and previously owned b.ellard gallery in Austin, Texas, where he showed his own and other local artist's work. Brian currently works out of Grapevine Foundry on a new series of bronze figurines with a show scheduled for 2018. Brian supports and attends the theatre, symphony and local Gallery openings.

Ornella Ellard is an architect, interior designer, and art restorer and since an early age has always been passionate about all forms of artistic expression. She buys art wherever she travels and highly enjoys attending theatre, opera and the symphony.

Timothy P. Horan Tim is a tax partner with the regional public accounting firm of BKM Sowan Horan, LLP. He has more than 37 years of experience in providing income tax consulting and compliance services to businesses and individuals. Tim is a graduate of Texas Tech University. He has been married to Ronda for 33 years and has two adult children, Lauren and Jarrett. Tim has served as a director on the Compass Bank Advisory Board, Wednesday's Child Benefit Corporation, Richardson Child Guidance Clinic, and the Collin County Texas Alumni Association.

Christopher Mabile's community involvement centers around arts based activities. He is an active member of the Business Council for the Arts (BCA) and recently completed their leadership development program. The program provides training in leadership, nonprofit board best practices, and knowledge of critical issues affecting cultural institutions in North Texas. His BCA leadership class developed the first "board fair" for arts organizations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, with the goal to match highly qualified community members from diverse work and cultural backgrounds with arts organizations in the area.

Christopher attends between 35-40 live theatre and other performances a year. He believes that the offerings in Dallas compete with other major cities and it's interesting and exciting to see how our arts scene has grown over the past ten years, especially in diversity in casting and new theater groups. Christopher believes that his involvement and support of the arts gives him a good perspective and overview of the Dallas arts scene as a whole.

He is also actively involved in the community from his career as Vice President of Operations for Health Integrity, a not-for-profit federal contractor tasked to look for fraud, waste, and abuse in federal healthcare programs. In short, it is a senior leadership position with responsibility for the overall operations and direction of medical review, investigations, and data analytics for Medicare in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Colorado, with managerial responsibility for supervisors, nurses, investigators, statisticians, and data analysts. Christopher is an attorney and Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and a board member of the Dallas Chapter of Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE).

Jennifer Martinez is a Vice President at Raymond James where she works as a Financial Advisor assisting families and business owners with their investments, retirement planning and wealth management. Jennifer has over 28 years of experience in the industry and previously worked for Smith Barney Inc. and Morgan Keegan & Company. She has been involved in community service for many years serving on the Board of Directors of Dallas Challenge and on the board of the Dallas Children's Advocacy Center league, where she is still an active volunteer. She was a recipient of the President's Volunteer Service Award in 2004. Jennifer and her company, Raymond James, have supported the WaterTower Theatre After-School Drama Program. Jennifer has been involved with WaterTower Theatre for several years as a Steering Committee member of WOW! and a season ticket holder. She and Nancy Brenner were recently named as Co-Chairs of WOW! In her free time, Jennifer is an avid tennis player. She loves her book club, theater and enjoys climbing Fourteeners with her husband Paul in Colorado. They have a 23 year old son Michael who is a student at UNT.

Craig A. Sutton as Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer of Rasa Floors, where he has been an advisor and board member since 1996. In October 2011 he retired as Senior Private Banking Relationship Manager with Northern Trust Bank in Dallas. At Northern Trust, Craig led the largest private banking practice in Texas, providing private banking, trust and wealth-advisory services. Craig previously was executive vice president of First City Bank in Dallas and held several senior leadership positions with InterFirst Bank Dallas.

During his career, Craig served as a bank president, commercial banking executive, retail banking executive, and international project finance specialist, leading several project financing initiatives in the North Sea and Middle East. Past roles also include chief financial officer of an oil & gas company, director of management information systems development, financial and management consultant, litigation support consultant, and mediator.

In addition to undergraduate engineering studies and specialized mediation training, Craig earned both a bachelor's degree in finance and a master's of business administration degree in finance from Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

Craig has been an active volunteer in professional and community organizations, including serving as president of the Financial Executives Institute, Dallas Chapter and as president of the Dallas Children's Theater. His wife Deborah is a Dallas attorney who is an active community volunteer. Craig has three children and two grandchildren.

Ron Whitehead was the City Manager of Addison from 1982 until February of 2014. During that period he was involved in shaping Addison's relationships with Shakespeare Dallas, The Dance Council of North Texas, The Dallas Winds and WaterTower Theatre. He was part of the team that envisioned the design and construction of the current Addison Conference and Theatre Centre. Ron's wife Donna is a retired elementary art teacher and they have been patrons of various visual and performing arts groups throughout the Dallas area

About WaterTower Theatre

Founded in 1996, WaterTower Theatre (WTT) is one of Texas' leading professional theatre companies and one of the flagship arts institutions in North Texas, having played an important role as a leader in developing new talent and encouraging the growth of the DFW artistic community through its commitment to hiring local artists. Led by Artistic Director Joanie Schultz and Managing Director Nicholas Even, it is consistently recognized for its artistic excellence by the Dallas Theatre League, DFW Theatre Critics Forum, The Dallas Morning News, The Dallas Observer, D Magazine, and The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, among others. WaterTower Theatre has a subscription base of more than 2,000 subscribers and serves an audience of over 24,000 patrons annually.

WTT Alumni currently working on Broadway/Internationally include Akron Watson (The Color Purple), Brian Gonzales (One Man, Two Guvnors and Disney's Aladdin), Major Attaway (the new Genie in Disney's Aladdin), Cedric Neal (West End, Motown), Anthony Fortino (First National Tour, Fun Home), John Campione (First National Tour, The Bridges of Madison County), Traci Lee (First National Tour, Beautiful), Clinton Greenspan and Jeremy Davis (First National Tour, Disney's Aladdin), and in many regional theatres across the country. Respected local actors such as Denise Lee, Liz Mikel, Gary Lynn Floyd, Zak Reynolds, Kyle Igneczi, Diana Sheehan, Pam Dougherty, and Emily Scott Banks credit WTT for nurturing their professional careers.

WaterTower Theatre is 501(c)(3) non-profit organization as designate by the IRS. Like all arts organizations, WaterTower Theatre relies on both ticket income and donations from individuals, corporations, foundations, organization and government to produce world-class live professional theatre and offer community outreach and arts education programs. WaterTower Theatre gratefully acknowledges the support of The Town of Addison, TACA, Texas Commission on the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Shubert Foundation. WaterTower Theatre is supported, in part, through the generosity of corporate, foundation and individual donors such as Atmos Energy, The Canterbury Family, Don and Barbara Daseke, Ben Fischer and Laree Hulshoff, FastSigns Carrollton, Paul and Norma Shultz, Frost Bank, Liberty Capital Bank, Mary Kay Inc., Janiece and Jimmy Niemann, The Nissan Foundation, Pinnacle, Slalom, Table 13, The Civic League, The President's Circle, the WaterTower Theatre Board of Directors, The Corporate Council, and Women of WaterTower Theatre.

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