SYRCL Staff Changes with the Seasons

While you were out on the river or on vacation, SYRCL was busy with several exciting staff transitions that we want to share with you, our dedicated members!

The SYRCL Staff and Board would like to extend appreciation to our Wild & Scenic Tour Manager, Susie Sutphin who is leaving to pursue new challenges, including a passion for agriculture and food policy issues. “After seeing hundreds of films on activism, I’m ready to jump in and get directly involved in specific issues that I’m fired up about,” states Susie.

After over four years of growing the Film Festival Tour Program from a handful of venues to a national (even International) program with a network of over 100 participating organizations, Susie nearly single-handedly established this signature program for SYRCL.  We applaud Susie for putting Wild & Scenic “on the map” as one of the most effective, successful and purposeful touring film festivals in the country!

Filling her shoes will be staff member Lori Van Laanen as the new Associate Producer of Wild & Scenic Events, focusing most of her time on the tour program along with support for the home festival.  Lori returned from teaching overseas for many years and chose to volunteer at SYRCL to reconnect with the community.

Replacing Lori as the new Administrative Assistant, is Jane Theobald, just having moved here from England, she immediately volunteered at SYRCL to support the river she loves.

The new Director of Development and Wild & Scenic Events is Melinda Booth, who comes to SYRCL with a Masters in Environmental Studies as well as extensive experience in fundraising, events production, and program management.

Teaming up to produce SYRCL’S s 10^th Anniversary Wild & Scenic Film Festival will be Miriam Limov, Producer of Wild & Scenic Events with Shana Maziarz as the 10^th Anniversary Creative Director. Miriam has volunteered and worked for SYRCL for over 20 years, producing a multitude of events and coordinating thousands of volunteers (among many other things).  Shana has served as the Executive Director at the North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center where she produced numerous events – she also has a background in wilderness studies, the arts, and is an avid environmentalist.  We are thrilled to have this wonderful team producing our 10^th Anniversary Wild & Scenic!!

Kim Milligan, a member of our Board of Directors for the past five years, is working diligently as our Interim Executive Director keeping our programs and projects flowing.

Check out the Meet the Staff page on our website to read all about our new and continuing staff members:  CLICK HERE.

Please stop by the SYRCL office and introduce yourself to all our new staff members and welcome them to the SYRCL family.