News

    The arts administrator credited with doubling ticket sales and developing a $5 million endowment at the Pennsylvania nonprofit he led for a decade has been named chief executive officer of the Delray Beach Center for the Arts.
    Rob Steele, former executive director of the Williamsport Community Arts Center in the north-central Pennsylvania city of Williamsport, is taking over the top job at the Delray Beach center from longtime CEO Joe Gillie, who retires Sept. 30.
    “Joe Gillie has been the champion in establishing the Delray Beach Center for the Arts as a premier arts institution in South Florida,” Steele said in a statement. “My goal is to honor, preserve and extend the rich traditions he has established.”
    Steele was chosen from about 100 applicants for the post, said Bill Branning, chairman of the board at the Delray Beach center, and stood out as the right person for the job, “with the right skills, talent, experience and energy.”
    A former restaurateur and vice president of a Michigan bank, Steele was executive director of the civic auditorium in Tecumseh, Mich., before going to Williamsport. At the 2,100-seat Community Arts Center there, Steele focused on community outreach as well as finances, increasing the number of collaborative partners to more than 200 from just 10.
    “Community outreach and coordinating broad-based collaborations with local organizations has become one of the hallmarks of my career,” Steele said, and pledged to “reach into every corner of the market” served by the Delray center to expand audiences and develop partnerships.
    The Delray Beach Center for the Arts is celebrating its 25th anniversary. It has its roots in the mid-1980s, when two historic school buildings dating to 1913 and 1925 were renovated and became the nucleus of the center’s Old School Square campus.                 
 — Staff report