By Elizabeth Shepherd

For The Beachcomber

Susan Warner, executive director of Vashon Center for the Arts for the past 11 months, will leave her post in June, the organization announced Monday.

VCA also announced that Kevin Hoffberg, who served as vice-president on VCA’s board of directors, has stepped down from the board and has been hired to help manage the organization during its transition. Additionally, Molly Reed, the organization’s executive director from 2006 to 2016, will return to VCA as a consultant for the next three months.

The flurry of personnel changes comes three weeks after VCA hosted a standing-room-only town hall meeting, called in response to complaints from local visual artists about changes that have taken place in the organization since it opened its new $21 million dollar arts campus in 2016.

VCA Board President Denise Katz announced Warner’s departure in an email Monday morning to VCA’s members.

Warner — who previously worked as artistic director of Tacoma’s Museum of Glass — had enjoyed her tenure at VCA, according to Katz’s email, but would be “returning to the museum field to pursue her curatorial and education interests.”

Warner, Katz added, would be taking “a much-needed sabbatical over the next few months, but would also continue working with the Board of Trustees to develop and implement a transition plan, as well as exploring new initiatives for VCA’s continued growth and long-term success.”

Katz’s email also announced the appointment of Hoffberg to his new post — an untitled role that Katz said Hoffberg would play to “support the organization and Susan’s transition.”

Reached by phone, Hoffberg said his new job would be that of a director of operations for the organization. Both he and Katz, also reached by phone later in the day, described the job as an open-ended, paid position, but declined to give information on his salary. Both also declined to give any additional information on Warner’s impending departure, though Katz said, “We wish Susan all the best and appreciate all she has done for the organization.”

Katz said she had confidence in Hoffberg.

“Kevin has been a very important board member, and he is going to go in for a certain amount of time,” Katz said. “He’ll do a great job. We’re just formulating what his role will be, and we’ll be able to expand on that in the next couple of weeks.”

One of Hoffberg’s first acts in his new capacity was to send an email shortly after the one Katz sent to VCA supporters and donors. In that email, Hoffberg said Reed, VCA’s former director, had agreed to return to the organization, stepping in to “help us and me navigate these next three months.”

Asked later if Reed would be paid for her work at the organization, Hoffberg said he didn’t know. “That’s to be determined,” he added. Her position, he said, would also be untitled, characterizing her job as a part-time “adviser, counselor, helper.”

Reed’s long tenure at VCA was most notable for her work in spearheading and overseeing the building of the new 20,000-square-foot arts center on the corner of Vashon Highway and Cemetery Road, named the Katherine L. White Hall in honor of the lead donor.

Hoffberg, who moved to the island in 2012 and has served on the board of VCA for the past two years, described himself on his VCA board profile as a “sort-of retired senior executive, citizen farmer, occasional consultant, and house remodeler.”

Currently, Hoffberg owns several properties on Vashon, including Blue Moon Farm, a small family farm that he operates with his wife, Eddy Radar, who is also an artist.

His LinkedIn profile lists a decades-long career in business, with an almost six-year stint as managing director of marketing for private client services at Russell Investment. In 2017, he became managing director of HoffbergDRMC, a company billing itself as an “expert in building healthy businesses, identifying, attracting, engaging, selling, serving, and retaining great partners, clients, customers, and team members.”

In a brief interview, Hoffberg touted his business skills as something that could help VCA in its present transition.

“I think people think there is something unique about running a non-profit, and in some ways that is true and in some ways it is not,” he said.

“Any company needs leadership, it needs community leaders, it needs better communications, and these are all things that are not special to a nonprofit, which is why the board asked me to step in and do this.”

Beyond that, Hoffberg said, he is a person with a deep love and lifelong involvement in the arts.

“I’m married to a working artist, my daughter is a professional dancer, and I grew up in a household that loved the arts,” he said. “My sister is a professional artist, I’m a writer and a photographer. It would be hard to overestimate how much of the arts are in my DNA.”

Over the past few months, Hoffberg said, he has been at VCA daily, and understands its operations. His appointment, he said, was a logical choice by the board.

“I don’t have an agenda,” he said. “I’m driven by my love for VCA and the love for the community, for this entire crazy enterprise.”

The town hall on Feb. 15 drew about 200 people to VCA’s lobby, where several islanders raised questions about recent changes at the organization – including the closure of the Heron’s Nest, a diminished calendar of exhibits by local artists, the treatment of artists who contributed work to VCA’s annual art auction and the state of the historic Blue Heron building