Operating Support

Marsha Anderson: Anderson is currently a program assistant with the City of Minneapolis Department of Health, assisting with the administration of federal grants. She has worked for several nonprofit organizations in a fundraising capacity, including the Greater Twin Cities United Way where she reviewed and evaluated grants. She has a master?s of public and nonprofit administration degree.; Wendy Frieze: Frieze has managed both for profit and nonprofit galleries in Boston, San Francisco, and Minneapolis for approximately 20 years. At the Oakland Museum (Oakland, CA), she comanaged the gallery and was a member of the contemporary arts committee, a fundraising arm of the museum. She was also an intern in the Cooper Hewitt textile department (New York, NY). As a designer, she worked for CBS Early Show, Crate & Barrel, and several world renowned interior designers as a licensing agent and marketer. Frieze is a cum laude graduate of Parsons School of Design in product design and knowledgeable in clay, glass, metal, and textile design. She has attended several classes at Harvard in education and the arts. She graduated from Adler Graduate School with a double master?s in clinical psychology and art therapy at 65 and currently practices as a counselor to artists and in the addiction world.; Melinda Nelson: Nelson is currently a senior manager at 3M Company, working there for more than forty years in a variety of positions ranging from product development, manufacturing, sales, business development, and corporate functions such as pricing and obtaining funding for R&D contracts. One of her positions was as a business development manager for research and development contracts and involved identifying and soliciting funding opportunities for R&D research projects, as well as writing the proposals and "earmarks?. She graduated with a chemical engineering BS from Iowa State University and a MBA from the University of St. Thomas. She is a sustaining member of the Junior League of Saint Paul and a former prime minister in Saint Paul Winter Carnival's senior court. She currently is the senior queen for Woodbury Ambassadors, and is a volunteer for White Bear Boating and other organizations. Nelson is an active participant in many arts related activities around the Twin Cities and the state and would like to support the arts by serving in this way. ; Abigail Pribbenow: Before moving to Minnesota in 2006, Pribbenow served as chair of the Rockford Area Arts Council in Rockford, IL, and served for several years as an arts administrator in the Chicago dance and visual arts communities. More recently she worked in fundraising and communication for a successful Minneapolis public charter school, Yinghua Academy, and served on the boards of Lutheran Arts and the Minnesota Boychoir. She holds an MA in arts administration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a BA in anthropology from the University of Chicago, and an IB from the United World College in Las Vegas, NM.; Germaine Riegert: Riegert is a retired postmaster and worked more than eighteen years as the chief financial officer for the White Earth Reservation Business Committee (RBC), prior to becoming employed with the United States Postal Service. She has a bachelor?s degree in accounting and business administration and has spent many years in public administration. While employed at the RBC, she was involved in the administration of nonprofit grants from many sources. She has served as a volunteer on the Region 2 Arts Council and was elected to serve as treasurer for the board. She is an enrolled member of the Minnesota tribe and the White Earth Nation. Her artistic accomplishments center around working with thread and yarns.; Sierra Scheet: Scheet is the financial and accounting systems manager at the Science Museum of Minnesota. She studied history and film at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and earned her BA in history in 2007. She continued her education and earned another BA in accounting from the College of St. Scholastica in 2011. Scheet has spent most of her career in nonprofit accounting working at the Science Museum of Minnesota and University of Minnesota Physicians. She has volunteered and serviced on the board of MNFashion.; Benjamin Strand: Strand is the Winona Main Street program manager and co-owner of Treedome Productions, a multimedia production house that supports local and regional artists through videography, photography, graphic design, talent booking, recording, and event planning. He previously spent two years as an arts and entertainment reporter for the Winona Daily News. Strand has volunteered for a number of music and art festivals, including Artspire, Mid West Music Fest, Frozen River Film Festival, Big Turn Music Fest, Boats and Bluegrass, Great River Shakespeare Festival, and Shut Down Third Street. He graduated from Winona State University in 2017 with a double major in mass communications/journalism, and English writing.; Shaurntae Thomas: Thomas is the director of human resources at Cookie Cart, where they teach life, leadership, and employment skills to teens of color through on-the-job and classroom experiences in nonprofit bakeries. Thomas is a member of the diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice committee at Cookie Cart, which is on a mission to lead the organization in becoming an anti-racist organization by using both the anti-racist and restorative justice framework models. Thomas studied English literature at the historically black college for women, Spelman College, and is an outspoken feminist and traditional systems disruptor of current policies, processes, and procedures that dominate organization culture and climate. Thomas is a self-taught poet and spoken word artist; a lover of oil paintings, abstract art, black and white photography, and art history. Thomas is a member of the board of directors of Chops, Inc., a nonprofit performing arts organization.; Sachidanandhan Venkatakrishnan: Venkatakrishnan is a senior project and program manager, managing information technology projects at Cognizant Technology Solutions. He has a bachelor?s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Madras in India. He serves on the executive board of Minnesota Tamil Sangam (MNTS), a nonprofit devoted to promoting Tamil culture in the state of Minnesota and played a key role in the accreditation of the organization?s language school. Venkatakrishnan has written poems and articles about nature, culture, tradition, and society for the magazine Panippookkal. He writes and directs stage programs and directed two of MNTS?s Fringe Festival productions and has successfully administered Tamil folk arts workshops continuously for a few years in row. He was the program committee chair for the Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America thirtieth annual Tamil language convention, held in 2017, in Minneapolis.; Lori Anne Williams, Williams is a major gifts officer with Lifeworks, a nonprofit serving people with disabilities. In her long nonprofit career, Williams has also worked for the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, the Playwrights? Center, and several human service and education organizations. She holds a master?s degree from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor?s degree from the University of Southern California.