The Vashon Maury Community Food Bank has selected a new executive director with more than 30 years of experience in nonprofit leadership.

Robbie Rohr took the reins of the agency last week, after rising to the top of pool of excellent candidates, according to food bank board President Susan Flores. She replaces former director Yvonne Pitrof, who recently stepped down after more than 10 years at the helm of the nonprofit.

“Her skill level is exemplary, and she has a calm demeanor and a willingness to listen, learn and understand,” Flores said about Rohr. “The board is excited about what she will do for us in the next few years.”

Prior to applying for the food bank position, Rohr, who has a master’s degree in social work, ran her own consulting business, with specialities that included providing interim executive director leadership. Her most recent interim appointments include DAWN (the Domestic Abuse Women’s Network) in Tukwila and the Wonderland Developmental Center in Shoreline. She has also served as the executive director of Cancer Lifeline, the Center for Human Services and the Executive Alliance, a nonprofit membership association she helped create to advance the nonprofit sector.

Rohr said she has always had a strong sense of social justice, and when she attended Earlham College, a Quaker school in Indiana, she felt among kindred spirits, as there was a sense of joy and an appreciation of life and personal responsibility to make life better for people.

“Since then I have learned that it is all about compassion,” she said.

In an interview last week, Rohr had been on the job only three days, but her first impressions were positive.

“I don’t think I have ever had so much fun in my first three days as I have here,” she said.

On a more serious note, she said believes that the food bank is healthy, and she spoke highly of the board, staff and volunteers, some of whom have given their time there for years.

“The big picture is good,” she said.

At the same time, she has ideas for change at the agency.

“There is a lot of potential to do more,” she said. “There are a lot of ways to interpret its mission.”

Some of the tasks she would like to take on, she said, are changing some of the norms of how people think about who uses the food bank and why, and getting more people involved in the agency’s work.

“A philosophy I have for successful nonprofits is what you do is continue to grow the circle of people who are stakeholders in the organization,” she said.

She sees nonprofits as having concentric circles of people invested in them, she said, starting with clients, staff, board and volunteers, then moving outward to donors, partner agencies and others.

“I want to help to find more people, businesses and individuals, who want to see (the food bank) as part of their life,” she said.

For some, that might mean contributing financially, and for others it could mean volunteering or dropping food off regularly.

Saying she is “not a city girl,” Rohr has been coming to Vashon since she moved to the area for graduate school at the University of Washington decades ago, and is pleased now to be working here, and at the food bank in particular.

“I think this is a really good place for me,” she said. “It’s an exciting place with lots to do and good people.”