Crystal Bridges Strategy Team

Lieven Bertels is director of the Momentary, an adaptive reuse project that will transform a decommissioned Kraft Foods plant south of Crystal Bridges into a multi-disciplinary space for visual, culinary and performing arts and an artist-in-residency program. In this role, Bertels is responsible for all activities related to the Momentary, including planning and development for the facility as well as artistic direction and day-to-day operations.

Prior to joining the Momentary, Bertels was the CEO and cultural director of Leeuwarden-Fryslân 2018 European Capital of Culture, a year-long festival in the Netherlands focusing on the arts in a rural context. From 2011 to 2016, he was the festival director for Sydney Festival in Australia. Under his stewardship, Sydney Festival garnered acclaim for its diverse artistic offerings and enjoyed wide public support. From 2010 to 2016 he served on the board of directors of the International Society for the Performing Arts in New York, and in 2013 was made Knight in the Belgian Order of the Crown.

From 2004 to 2011, Bertels served as artistic coordinator at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam, The Netherlands’ oldest and largest arts festival. From 2001 to 2004, Bertels held the position of inaugural artistic director for Concertgebouw in Bruges, Belgium, where he was responsible for overseeing the planning, grand opening and programming for the first three years of the new campus.

Rod Bigelow has served as executive director of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art since 2013, guiding all facets of the museum’s development and reflecting his more than 20 years of experience in management of arts and cultural institutions. He joined Crystal Bridges in 2010, serving as the deputy director of operations and administration, focusing on organizational and policy development as well as construction activities leading up to the museum’s opening in November, 2011. 

During Bigelow’s tenure at Crystal Bridges, the museum has welcomed nearly 4 million visitors. Prior to joining Crystal Bridges, Bigelow was chief operating officer at the Toledo Museum of Art, where he implemented a federal grant program to increase funding for the museum’s sustainability projects, initiated collaboration with local non-profit organizations and coordinated planning and pre-construction activities for a new contemporary gallery space. He was appointed interim executive director at the Toledo Museum of Art in 2009.

Bigelow previously served as director of administrative and financial services at The Art Institute of Seattle, where he oversaw financial aid, accounting, facilities and retail activities. Bigelow also spent eight years with the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington, serving initially as chief financial officer and later as interim executive director. 

He holds a master’s in business administration degree from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. In 2012, he completed the Museum Leadership Institute sponsored by the Getty and Claremont Graduate University. He currently serves as treasurer of the Association of Art Museum Directors and is the immediate past president of Downtown Bentonville, Inc.

 

Diane Carroll serves as Director of Communications for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. With more than two decades of experience as a communications professional, Carroll directs the museum’s creative services, digital media, public relations, marketing, and publications departments.

These in-house teams manage a full roster of communications for the new museum, which opened in November 2011 and has welcomed nearly 4 million visitors to date. Prior to joining Crystal Bridges, Carroll worked with Network Communications, Inc., Atlanta, GA, Hachette Filipacchi Media, New York, NY, Meredith Publications, Inc., Des Moines, IA, and Rainoldi, Kerzner & Radcliffe, an Omnicom Group agency in San Francisco, CA. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications/journalism from the University of Dayton in Dayton, OH.

Carroll is a member of the Professional Advisory Board for the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas, as well as a board member of the Northwest Arkansas Tourism Association.

 

 

Margaret (Margi) Conrads joined the museum in 2015 to provide strategic vision for design and development of the museum’s art programs. She leads the curatorial, collections management, and library and archives teams as well as strategic art initiatives and partnerships including the curatorial activities of Art Bridges, a nonprofit organization started in 2017 by Alice Walton to share great works of American art across the country. She also serves as the museum liaison to the newly established University of Arkansas School of Art.

Prior to Crystal Bridges, Conrads served as deputy director of art and research at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, where she managed the curatorial, conservation, exhibitions, library and archives departments, and design and installation divisions. Previously, Conrads spent 20 years at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo., where she was the Samuel Sosland senior curator of American art.

While at the Nelson-Atkins, Conrads was the editor and primary author of The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945. She contributed select essays for Crystal Bridges’ inaugural collection catalog, Celebrating the American Spirit, and has published writings on key American artists in the Crystal Bridges’ collection, including Eastman Johnson, Thomas Cole, Thomas Hart Benton, Alexander Calder, and Andrew Wyeth, among others.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in art history from Connecticut College in New London, Conn., master’s degree in art history from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., and Ph.D. in art history at City University of New York, N.Y., and is a graduate of the Getty Museum Leadership Institute. Conrads’ work has centered on American art to 1945, and she has received international recognition for the exhibition and catalog, Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s (Princeton University Press). She has organized national and international touring exhibitions, collaborating with a variety of institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the High Museum of Art.

 

Tracy Cude has served as chief financial officer of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art since 2006. As CFO, she is responsible for the business services division of the museum, including financial services for the museum as well as leadership for the museum store, special events, information technology and culinary/catering departments. 

Prior to joining Crystal Bridges, Cude led the accounting and operational support team at the Walton Family Foundation, and served as vice president for finance and planning at the Walton Arts Center, where she led strategic planning functions and executed a major enhanced-programming grant funded by the Walton Family Foundation. 

In addition to her non-profit career experience, Cude spent nine years as a private consultant and served on a merger and acquisition team for Raytheon Corporate Jets. She has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and holds a Certified Public Accountant license.

 

Since 2008, Scott Eccleston has played a key role in the master planning, implementation and ongoing maintenance of the Museum’s 120-acre Ozark woodland site. He was instrumental in the creation of the more than 3.5 miles of trails that provide guests with access to the museum’s beautiful landscape. Designed to spark the imagination, the trails help guests form connections to the land and its history, as well as enjoy outdoor artworks. 

As director of operations, Scott oversees the operations and maintenance of both the 201,000-square-foot museum and the extensive trails and grounds system. In addition to 120 acres of forest, gardens and trails, the system includes Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bachman-Wilson House, which was relocated from its original site in New Jersey to Crystal Bridges in 2015; and Buckminster Fuller’s Fly’s Eye Dome, which was reconstructed on the museum grounds in 2017.  In 2017 Scott’s teams finished construction on a newly designed elevator tower and a 30-acre sculpture park, which has provided new access opportunities to the North Lawn and the North Forest. Scott is now leading the project team in the design and construction of the new Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas. The Momentary is an adaptive reuse project that will transform a decommissioned Kraft Foods plant south of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art into a multi-disciplinary space for visual and performing arts and an artist-in-residency program.

Born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Eccleston began a career in landscape at age 14. By age 17, he became the youngest manager of grounds responsible for maintaining the Phillips Petroleum campus located in Bartlesville. By 1993, he had received a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from Oklahoma State University and completed an internship with the National Park Service at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.  

After moving to Northwest Arkansas, Eccleston owned and operated a landscape design company from 1994 to 2008. In May of 2008, he became a consultant for Crystal Bridges, then under construction. In January 2009, he was hired as full-time manager of parks and grounds for the museum. Since then he has served as director of trails and grounds and as director of facilities and grounds. He was promoted to his current position in 2015.

 

Sandra (Sandy) Keiser Edwards’ career exemplifies her deep commitment to improving quality of life through arts and education. She has served as deputy director for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art since 2007, playing a vital role in the conception, planning, building and opening of the museum.  She was instrumental in the establishment of endowments for the museum’s operations, acquisitions and capital improvements, as well as a grant that provides free admission to the museum. Edwards has been and continues to be a guiding force in establishing this cultural destination, creating and growing connections to bring increased tourism to the area, as well as offering the region’s residents unparalleled arts, cultural and educational experiences.

Prior to Crystal Bridges, Edwards and her late husband, Clay, served for nine years as the management team for University of Arkansas’ development program directing the Campaign for the Twenty-First Century.

Edward’s previous work has emphasized art and education as well. She served as director of development for outreach and cooperative extension at the Pennsylvania State University. She created the first comprehensive advancement program in the field of continuing and distance education at a university, where she held a post from 1992 to 1998. She was part of the management team that created Penn State’s World Campus, a virtual university for students at a distance from the physical location. Prior to her involvement in university development, she was recognized nationally for her work in the fields of major concert promotion and performing arts.

As an advocate of access to quality education, Edwards served as a trustee on the board of her alma mater, Lenoir Rhyne College; received the Penn State’s Outreach Pioneer Award for Distance Education; was named honorary alumna of the University of Arkansas; and received an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters and Distinguished Alumna Award from Western Illinois University where she received a master’s degree. 

 

Robin Groesbeck works with teams to connect people with art, architecture and nature. She is director of exhibitions & interpretation at Crystal Bridges, and oversees exhibition design, project management and the creation of interpretive tools and plans for the galleries, exhibitions and outdoor spaces. She and her team also send Crystal Bridges exhibitions to other museums in the U.S. and abroad.

Robin served as senior director of exhibitions at the California Academy of Sciences, deputy director for art & programs at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, and as director of exhibitions at The Field Museum, Chicago. Robin studied painting and drawing and taught drawing at the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, and has Bachelor of Arts degrees in studio art and modern society & social thought from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is a former board member of the California Association of Museums, where she was co-chair of the Multi-cultural and Emerging Professionals committee. 

 

Rhonda currently serves as director of Human Resources for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Prior to joining Crystal Bridges, her previous professional engagements have included: 1) Principal Owner and HR Director of FirstStaff Staffing and HR Factor Consulting; 2) Vice President of Administration for Staffmark 3) Director of Employment, Classification and Compensation for the University of Arkansas. 

Rhonda has completed 9 hours toward her Ph.D. in the Public Policy program.  She received her Master of Education in 1993 and her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 1981, both from the University of Arkansas.  She served as adjunct faculty at the University of Arkansas teaching public personnel management for 5 years. Rhonda obtained her Professional Human Resource (PHR) Certification in 1998.  

Rhonda is a member of NOARK and SHRM and has been active with NOARK, the local SHRM HR Professional Organization for many years. She served as committee chair several times and has also served as president. Rhonda was recognized as HR Professional of the Year in 2005. While working for the U of A, she was active with the College and University Personnel Association (CUPA). She served as the chair for the southwest region. She also served on the executive board and was awarded a Distinguished Service Award. 

Niki Ciccotelli Stewart is the chief engagement officer at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. She joined the museum in 2008 before the public opening, taking the museum from idea to reality. Stewart oversees the museum’s strategic approach to visitor engagement and actively manages the museum’s exhibitions program, permanent gallery installations and interpretation. Stewart also oversees new engagement projects, as assigned by the museum’s board of directors.

Stewart has worked in the arts for 20 years as an artist, educator, and administrator. Prior to Crystal Bridges, she was at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida; and Florida public schools. She spent a decade with The Walt Disney Company in entertainment, costuming and educational programming. She was on the opening team of The Disney Institute, and helped launch the second ship in the Disney Cruise Line’s fleet: The Disney Wonder.

Stewart is an active member of the American Alliance of Museums, where she served on the steering committee of EdCom (Education Committee) and judged the annual Excellence in Exhibitions Competition. She is active in the National Art Education Association, working closely with the team on NAEA’s School for Art Leaders. Stewart graduated from the Getty Leadership Institute at Claremont Graduate University in 2015, and continues to serve as a mentor to subsequent attendees. She is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences of all sizes, and representing the museum nationally.

Stewart holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, where she majored in illustration and minored in photography.  She studied at Johns Hopkins University, The College of New Jersey and Moore College of Art and Design. 

Jill Wagar has more than 20 years of experience working in philanthropic and external relations for nonprofit organizations in the sectors of arts, higher education and healthcare.  She is in her eighth year at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

As the chief strategy officer, Jill leads the execution of the Crystal Bridges’ strategic planning process and aligns the institution’s strategic plan with philanthropic resources to achieve long-term impact.  Joining the museum in its formative years, Jill’s leadership was instrumental in opening the museum and establishing the development and membership offices to receive private gift support and annual museum memberships. 

Prior to this appointment, Jill was the associate vice president for development and communications at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville, Arkansas. In this role, she led the institution’s first comprehensive capital campaign and managed the college’s public image.  She also established significant public-private partnerships to maximize revenue bond financing. 

Jill’s previous work also focused on growth of a non-profit organization.  She served as the director of public affairs and development for The Children’s Center in Bethany, Oklahoma, a hospital for medically fragile children receiving sub-acute care and rehabilitative services.  She led the hospital’s external relations team in private gift support, public relations and marketing.  

A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, she holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and public relations from Oklahoma State University.  She was recognized by the Northwest Arkansas Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Executives as the Outstanding Fundraiser in 2007.  The Northwest Arkansas Business Journal named her in the 2018 class of 40 Under 40.