937-222-2787 ext. 101
lhanson@cultureworks.org

Lisa Hanson has served as Executive Director of Culture Works since April 2017. Lisa is an entrepreneur, educator, performer, and business professional. Lisa received her Bachelor of Music Education Degree from University of Miami, School of Music in Miami, FL. The focus of Lisa’s graduate work was vocal performance and pedagogy at Northeast Louisiana University. An award-winning, classically trained vocalist/recording artist, she has performed in Carnegie Hall as well as internationally. Here in Dayton, Lisa enjoys performing with the Dayton Opera Chorus and as a professional soloist. In addition, Lisa has served as both director and clinician for several national vocal performance workshops. As a public speaker, Lisa speaks on a local, state, and national level on such subjects as community engagement and fundraising.

Though a native of South Florida, Lisa has lived in Dayton for 22 years with her husband Mark and four children. She has served as a nonprofit executive for nearly a decade. Prior to Culture Works, Lisa served as executive director for the Epilepsy Foundation of Western Ohio. Her visionary leadership maximized community engagement over 11 counties, executing key impact strategies to increase the effectiveness of the agency’s programs and services. As a public speaker, she was most recently invited to speak at a national conference on growing community engagement through successful fundraising events.

Lisa is a life-long advocate for the arts. She is excited to dedicate her time and talents to advocating for the arts, building support and engagement for Dayton Region’s arts scene, and improving quality of life by expanding access to the arts for all citizens of the eight-county service area of Culture Works.

937-222-2787 ext. 104
kmaner@cultureworks.org

Born and raised in Dayton, Karen Maner earned her MFA in creative nonfiction at Eastern Washington University, where she served as the region’s Poetry Out Loud coordinator and the assistant coordinator of Get Lit!—a nonprofit that engages the Inland Northwest in celebration of the written word through educational outreach and community events. Since returning to Dayton, she’s dedicated herself to organizations that unite the community through storytelling, arts, and culture, serving as Vice President of the Friends of the Dayton Metro Library, as a board member and program chair for UpDayton, and as a marketing committee member for TEDxDayton. Her writing has appeared in Best American Nonrequired Reading, Colorado Review, Sonora Review, and The Rumpus and made the Notable Essays list in Best American Essays 2014.

937-222-2787 ext. 103
dwatts@cultureworks.org

Dorie Watts was born in Boise, ID and lived in Las Vegas and her father’s native country of the Philippines before settling down in Dayton for most of her life. She has been a resident of the Dayton Region since childhood, earning her B.S. in business administration from the University of Dayton with Summa Cum Laude honors. After dabbling in the business world for a short time after graduation, she heard the call of the skies and became a flight attendant for what she thought might be “a year or two.” Over fifteen years of flying all over the world gave her the opportunity to experience and appreciate arts and culture in many different countries, understand the importance of a world view, and learn about and appreciate cultural differences. She continues to travel whenever she gets the chance and thinks you should, too!

Dorie and her husband, Jim, have lived near Springboro since 1999. They have three almost-grown children that are in the midst of college or recently graduated.

Dorie has been working in non-profit arts since 2013, supporting fundraising in the workplace, the operational duties of the organization, and managing the strategic aspects of the cultural planning process undertaken by Culture Works in 2015. Dorie is also a longtime volunteer and has served on the Executive Committee for the Springboro chapter of Terrific Women in Giving (TWIG) , which raises a substantial amount of financial support for Dayton Children’s each year.

937-222-2787 ext. 107
bbaugham@cultureworks.org

Born and raised in Dayton, Benjamin is a well-known local artist and street performer, creating chalk art and other works as "Boy Blue." Benjamin headed up the artistic team that created The Underground graffiti themed mural located at the lower level entrance to The Tank Inspired by Centerpoint Energy in the Arcade and you can often find him creating both temporary and permanent art on the streets of the Dayton Region with a mission to increase awareness of art in the private and public sectors. Soon to graduate from Wright State University with a degree in Human Resources, Benjamin serves as the Community Engagement Coordinator for Culture Works, working as a representative of other artists and the arts organizations in our region and reaching out as a liaison to the business community.

937-222-2787 ext. 106
vblack@cultureworks.org

Vanessa Black, from Marysville, Ohio, has been surrounded by the arts, specifically dance, from a very young age. Vanessa started ballet lessons at three years old and knew she wanted to pursue a full-time career in ballet at the age of thirteen. In 2018, Vanessa achieved her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ballet from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music with a minor in Marketing. Throughout college, Vanessa had the opportunity to perform with Dayton Ballet as a guest artist in ballets such as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. Shortly after graduation, she moved to Dayton to dance as a full-time company member with Dayton Ballet. Vanessa has enjoyed performing highlighted roles in ballets such as Adam Sage's The Little Mermaid, Nicole Haskins' La Linea Scura, Septime Webre’s Carmen, Stephen Mills’ Red Roses, and Ron Cunningham's The Great Gatsby. In April 2022, Vanessa retired from dancing professionally and now continues to work in the arts industry as a Donor Relations Specialist at Culture Works while pursuing a degree in Visual Communications from Sinclair Community College.

hgregory@cultureworks.org

Hannah grew up in Louisville, Kentucky but now calls Cincinnati home. She received her BFA in Musical Theatre from Northern Kentucky University and has performed professionally for over twenty years throughout the Louisville and Cincinnati area. In 2019, she produced her first original musical, Descent: a Murder Ballad, at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, which received the Producer's Pick of the Fringe. Her playwriting, songwriting, and producing work has yielded multiple awards at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, including back-to-back Critic's Picks (The Belle and Boone Helm, 2021; Wuthering: a musical on the moors, 2022). She is a 2019 recipient of Kentucky Foundation for Women's Artist Enrichment grant.

Hannah found a love for grantmaking during her time as a Mad Philanthropist-turned-Community Manager with People's Liberty, a five-year experimental lab in Cincinnati dedicated to funding community members to implement creative projects; and she now splits her professional time between theatre and arts-based philanthropy. Her work as the Grantmaking Associate at Culture Works focuses on preparing a successful and organized grant experience for the organizations and individual artists who bring the magic of arts, culture, and humanities to the Dayton region.