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Tarpon Springs woman to lead Pasco Arts Council

Ann Larsen replaces Marj Golub, who is leaving after 10 years as executive director.

By BARBARA FREDRICKSEN
Published March 30, 2006

TARPON SPRINGS - Ann Larsen of Tarpon Springs has been named the new executive director of the Pasco Arts Council by the agency's board of directors.

Larsen will be in charge of the council's art center on Moog Road in Holiday. She will solicit and schedule artists to exhibit at the center and in public places, act as a liaison with other area arts organizations, increase countywide membership and involvement and pursue grants to help support the arts in the community.

She replaces Marj Golub, who will leave the post effective April 14 to pursue a business venture she has been interested in for some time. Golub was the council's director for 10 years.

Larsen was a co-founder of the Friends of Music at Sunset Beach, a group that raises money to buy equipment for the free concerts at the popular Tarpon Springs site. The group is soliciting money to build a permanent stage at the site.

She was recently installed as chairman of the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art board of directors.

Larsen is the former executive director of Management Assistance Program of Tampa, a firm that gives workshops, seminars and courses for employees and volunteers working with nonprofit organizations and ongoing support for managers of nonprofit groups.

"I am thrilled that Ann has agreed to become executive director," said Joan Saunders, past chairman of the center's board and a current board member. "I have known Ann for years and know she can bring a lot to the position."

Larsen noted the rapid growth in Pasco County and said one of her goals is to encourage partnerships between business and the arts.

"The arts can help the economic vitality," she said. "When businesses want to move to a place, they want to know what's available in the arts. It helps businesses recruit. (Prospective employees) ask about those things - concerts, museums, places for their kids to take art classes."

A diverse arts scene helps build a diverse community, she said. "It's a huge value proposition for people there in Pasco County," she said. The value of putting a business in Pasco is enhanced "if you add the cache of the arts to" availability of land and a trained work force.

Before moving to Florida in the late 1990s, Larsen was assistant to the director of the Iowa Arts Council, project director of the Art in State Buildings in Iowa, executive director of the Minnetonka Center for the Arts in Minneapolis and owner of an art gallery.

She has been a longtime volunteer at the Pasco Arts Council art center. Her first major project, in 1997, was researching the center's first permanent collection, the works of the late sculptor Vladimir Yoffe. Later, she installed the Vonn Hamilton exhibition, researched the council's Art in Public Places project and provided free consulting services for several organizational issues.

Her new position in Pasco pays $17,000 a year.

[Last modified March 30, 2006, 06:42:57]