Center of Creative Arts (COCA) stay in-house for a new executive director, hiring current general manager Kelly Lamb Pollock to fill the post. She was selected after an extensive national search. Pollock is only the organization’s second executive director in 23 years.

Pollock, COCA’s general manager since 2006, started at COCA in 1997 as its director of development. In her eight years in that position, the organization’s budget grew from $1.7 million to its current $5 million. She successfully managed COCA’s $10 million Access to Excellence capital and endowment campaign. She also secured millions of dollars in grants over the years from several sources, including National Endowment for the Arts, Wallace Foundation, Kresge Foundation and MetLife Foundation. 

As COCA’s general manager, Pollock secured one of four national Innovation Lab grant awards from the Doris Duke Foundation and EmcArts to develop COCAbiz, a program designed to integrate arts practice and concepts into talent and leadership development in business.

Pollock received a bachelor of arts degree from Washington University and a master’s degree in public policy administration from University of Missouri in St. Louis.  She is also a graduate of the CORO Women in Leadership Program. 

COCA is the nation’s fifth largest multidisciplinary community arts center. The organization has received significant national recognition for its achievements, including: a Bridge Builders Award from Partners for Livable Communities, recognizing COCA’s strong partnerships in community improvement; participation in the Partners in Education Program of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; three Ford Foundation grants for Interchange, COCA’s collaborative arts integration program in the St. Louis Public Schools; and a Coming Up Taller Award from the White House.

In 2009, COCA was featured as one of 19 case study sites for Qualities of Quality: Understanding Excellence in Arts Education. It was a research study conducted by Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education aimed at identifying and defining the key components of high-quality arts learning and teaching, both in and out of school.

Barbara Archer, president of COCA’s board of directors, had this to say of her new hire. “After an extensive national search, we are fortunate and delighted that the best candidate to lead COCA into the next phase of its development comes from within. Kelly’s combination of demonstrated leadership, commitment to quality arts education and community building, make her most qualified to build on the outstanding success we’ve achieved in our first 23 years.”

Pollock began her new job in July.  Her predecessor and founding executive director, Stephanie Riven, left to join David Bury Associates in New York.  

Founded in 1986, COCA’s mission is to enrich lives and build community through the arts. COCA’s noteworthy programming includes an extensive arts education program in dance, music, theatre, voice and visual arts. It offers: 500 classes, camps and workshops annually at its University City headquarters and at 50 schools and community centers; The COCA Family Theatre Series; The Millstone Gallery at COCA; and its award-winning Urban Arts and Interchange programs, providing free arts education and arts integrated programming to St. Louis Public School students. It serves 50,000 people annually. For more information, visit  COCAstl.org.