AIA Kansas City: The American Institute of Architects

Dear AIA Kansas City Members –

Today it’s my great pleasure to introduce AIAKC’s next Executive Director, and her name is…. Dawn. Dawn Taylor, that is. No, we didn’t decide the position should permanently be occupied by a “Dawn”, but yes, it will no doubt make calling the office a bit easier.

In all seriousness, the Board and the ED Search Committee are delighted to present Dawn Taylor to you. The committee went through an extensive, 5-month long selection process, which started with 60 exceptional candidates and ended with Dawn. Dawn not only impressed early on with her qualifications, but as the process and multiple interviews evolved she also continued to impress us with her enthusiasm, her strategies for the Chapter and her tactical knowledge of how to get things done. She was unanimously ratified by the Board at a special meeting this month.

Dawn has been the Development Officer at the Kemper Museum of Art for the last seven years, where she manages a staff, works strategically with their Board, and has primary responsibility for raising dollars for the Museum’s goals. Prior to that she worked in various capacities at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for ten years. She has extensive experience in the arts community in Kansas City obviously, and knows a great many of you already. More importantly, however, she has an entrepreneurial mindset that we believe will serve the Chapter well as we look to the next era for AIAKC. A key goal of the Committee and the Board was to ensure that whoever we hired would build upon the work of Dawn Kirkwood and the last several years, and not to let us “plateau”. Dawn has also served on the National Board of Directors for Duke University for the last four years, and was very gracious about not rubbing that in to us local college basketball fans during the interview process.

Dawn will be attending our next Chapter Social on June 2nd at AECOM/Ellerbe Becket, and I hope you have a chance to stop by and say hello. She will officially be starting work in the office on June 7th, which gives us about a month to overlap with Dawn Kirkwood. Dawn K will continue to be in the office through the end of June.

Two final items of utmost importance. First, if you see any of the people on the search committee, please thank them for their time. This group was exceptionally thoughtful, and volunteered numerous hours to interview the candidates. In addition to myself, the committee included:

Neal Angrisano, AIA
Tim Cahill, FAIA
Jonathan Cole, AIA
Susan Richards Johnson, AIA
Tony Rohr, AIA
Amy Slattery, AIA
Jay Tomlinson, AIA
David Warm
Richard Wetzel, AIA

Richard Wetzel, who chaired the committee, especially put in countless hours and effort.

Finally, I hope by now you all have June 22nd marked on your calendars. Dawn Kirkwood’s “Farewell Fiesta” is being hosted that day/evening at the AIAKC office, and I promise it will be an entertaining event. Please make sure to stop by (if not then, certainly another time), to express your thanks to Dawn for all that she has done for us.

Warm regards to all,

Kevin Klinkenberg, AIA
2010 President