Director Project

Desiree Urquhart

Email: abp5h9@r.postjobfree.com

Address: ** ******** ***.

City: Colonial Beach

State: VA

Zip: 22443

Country: USA

Phone: 804-***-****

Skill Level: Director

Salary Range: $125,000

Willing to Relocate

Primary Skills/Experience:

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Educational Background:

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Job History / Details:

Desiree P. Urquhart gradually transitioned her career into the arts 20 years ago after over 17 years in engineering. For 10 years she served in numerous capacities at Arena Stage, the preeminent regional theater in Washington, DC including as Director of the Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship Program, Director of Community Engagement (its Arts Education Program), Director of Corporate Development, Director of Government and Community Relations and as Associate Executive Director. She wrote the Request for Proposal for Architectural Design Services and played an important role in the theater's selection of Bing Thom Architects that designed the new iconic 200,000sf Mead Center for American Theater complex. As the theater's chief lobbyist, she successfully raised over $35 million from the public sector to support the theater's capital campaign.

Desiree also served as the public "face" of Arena in the SW Waterfront community and planned and executed all community charrettes with business owners and residents. In addition to preparing and delivering public testimony for any government and agency approvals regarding the theater's renovation and expansion project, she regularly interfaced with the DC Office of Planning, the Fine Arts Commission, the National Park Service, the DC Zoning Board, the DC Department of Transportation, Homeland Security, the White House, the State Department, the Mayor's Office, and the entire DC City Council.

In 2005, Desiree left Arena for a brief assignment as Vice President of Arts Education at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark where she oversaw 27 arts education programs in music, dance and theater with a $3.5 million budget. While at NJPAC, she planned, organized and hosted with her staff the first national conference on Arts and Aging in partnership with the National Center for Creative Aging, AARP, the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey, and the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at The George Washington University. As a result of the conference's overwhelming success, Desiree served as a project partner on the development of the 2007 resource guide, "Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit."

In 2007, Arena Stage recruited her back to Washington to continue her lobbying efforts to secure additional public funding for its capital campaign and was instrumental in securing a $10 million loan from DC Government. Desiree lead the effort to secure government agency approvals for the theater's 2010 move back into its renovated and expanded facility and in growing the community's use of the new facility for meeting space and life-cycle event rentals. Her work expanded into serving as the lead negotiator with the new waterfront developer to protect the theater's views of the Washington Channel and to secure additional housing, parking and adjacent restaurants for the benefit of theater staff and patrons.

Desiree recently left Arena and is currently seeking consultant opportunities to provide lobbying, fundraising, public participation coordination, and community relations services to cultural arts organizations, government and quasi government agencies, arts education programs, urban planners, developers, and architects.

She is a Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude graduate of Wellesley College, a 2001 National Urban Fellow and the current Vice Chair of the Planning Commission in her home town of Colonial Beach, Virginia where she has served since 2008.

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