phil reynolds and heather hartley

Co-Founders

Phil has more than 35 years of experience in curation and performing arts executive management in North Carolina, Chicago, New York, Vermont and elsewhere. Learn more about Phil.

Heather, a native of the Blue Ridge, grew up in Boone, NC and is thrilled to return to her roots. She is a skilled arts administrator, and accomplished dancer and interdisciplinary artist with more than 25 years of experience in the performing arts sector. Learn more about Heather.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Thomas edward frank

Board Member

Thomas Edward Frank is University Professor Emeritus of Wake Forest University. A scholar of American religious history, his research and publication has focused on American Protestantism and its institutions, particularly liberal arts colleges, denominations, local congregations, and utopian communities.

 Dr. Frank is a specialist in historic preservation with particular interest in landscapes and streetscapes of American towns and cities, and how they stimulate collaboration, innovation, and artistic expression in all forms. He has taught courses in historic preservation, creativity, and spirituality and the arts. His study Historic Houses of Worship in Peril: Conserving Their Place in American Life was published in 2020. He is developing a collection of essays exploring the people and heritage of Black Mountain College, a widely known adventure in liberal arts education, community living, and the arts from 1933-1957. He is Co-Editor of the Journal of Black Mountain College Studies published by the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center in Asheville, North Carolina.

Board Member

E. Patrick Johnson is Dean of the School of Communication and Annenberg University Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University. A prolific performer/scholar and an inspiring teacher, he has conducted research and shared artistry that has greatly impacted African American studies, performance studies and gender and sexuality studies. He is a 2020 inductee into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of several books and has edited and co-edited collections, essays and plays, including Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South—An Oral History and Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women. E. Patrick is also among the subjects and co-executive producer of the documentary film Making Sweet Tea.

As a native of Hickory, NC, he is an inaugural member of the board and a collaborator for the “Miss Sarah” Fellowship for Black Women Writers. Heather and Phil’s inspiration to create a space for artists in his home state provides the perfect opportunity for him to honor his mother and the legacy of black women writers.

LORI MCLEESE

Board Member

Lori McLeese is a North Carolina native who is the Global Head of Human Resources for Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, Longreads, and much more. Lori is responsible for Automattic’s global workforce working distributedly across 90+ countries. With her team, she focuses on making Automattic the best place to work. Prior to working in Human Resources, she taught elementary school in the public school systems in San Francisco and North Carolina, and abroad in private schools in Kuwait, Egypt, and South Korea. She lives in Asheville and enjoys gardening, writing, hiking, and hosting friends for dinner. 

Rick Molland

Board Member

Originally from the small English town of Street, in Somerset (think Clarks Shoes and Glastonbury Music Festival), Rick attended boarding schools from the age of eleven before heading on to College at the City of Leicester Polytechnic. He describes his educational experience as widely varied in a liberal arts kind-of- way.

After spending his early post college years in Liverpool and Bolton, Lancashire, working as a computer programmer and systems analyst, he moved to the United States in 1978 initially for a one-year information technology (IT) consulting job. Although the original plan had been to continue around the world working in different IT-related jobs in the southern hemisphere, Rick quickly found a taste for the American way of life and settled permanently in the Midwest, mostly in Indiana. Rick's careers included IT, consulting, eBusiness, and auditing for large insurance corporations. After experiencing the rollercoaster of working for a Fortune 100 company during a period of rapid change, he and his wife Connie ‘retired’ to Western North Carolina in 2008. They now spend their time in Madison County volunteering, hiking, and enjoying the slower life that comes with living on 27 tranquil acres in the mountains.

With his varied background in business consulting, the internal control environment of large organizations, and the application of technology solutions to business problems, Rick has worked to ensure successful outcomes in the roles he has undertaken. Throughout his career he has found that leveraging his experience to ‘give back’ through engagement in the non-profit sector is rewarding for the soul. In addition to serving on human service non- profit boards in Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, he served as the executive director of the Community Housing Coalition of Madison County before permanently retiring in 2013. Rick is a past president of the Rotary Club of Madison County, and currently sits on its Board as Treasurer.

ANNE RAWSON

Board Secretary

Anne Rawson brings abundant experience in non-profit management to Trillium Arts’ Board of Directors.  After graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in Dance, she worked for seventeen years with the Special Olympics on regional (Central California coast), national and international levels. She has directed the Grants Program at the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County (NC) and is a former Executive Director of the Madison County Arts Council (Marshall, NC).  She has served on non-profit boards in Western North Carolina including NC Stage Company, Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre and NC Arts. Anne was a consultant on the Asheville Art Museum’s capital campaign. She resides in Mars Hill, NC in a restored eighty-year-old farm house where she now enjoys gardening and collecting contemporary art.

Banner: Photo of Heather Hartley and Phil Reynolds by Tanja Kuic