Zoellner Arts Center Traveling While Black: Co-Pilots & Co-Conspirators

MAR 29

Wednesday 7pm | Resurrected Life Church, Allentown, PA

VIRTUAL REALITY EXPERIENCE

Traveling While Black: Co-Pilots & Co-Conspirators

ZOELLNER

ARTS CENTER LEHIGH UNIVERSITY

Zoellner Arts Center receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

2022.2023 SEASON

PANELISTS Annie Balles is a senior at Lehigh University, she is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science with minors in Africana Studies and Earth and Environmental Science. Annie spent the summer months of 2022 interning as an interpretive park ranger for the Bureau of Land Management, where she developed educational and outreach materials celebrating the natural, cultural, and historical resources of Bears Ears National Monument in southeast Utah. Her experience working with the public further nurtured her desire to use her voice in a positive way, and she has been cultivating this passion in the educational realm through her position as vice president of Community Growers Club and by joining in on conversations about race, class, gender, and environmental justice.

Megan Briggs currently serves as the Director of Community Investments at the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation. In this role, she oversees LVCF’s grantmaking strategy and administration.

Since joining the Community Foundation in 2017, she has overseen nearly $10 million dollars in funding distributed to Lehigh Valley nonprofits. Megan oversees the foundation’s CORE fellowship program, a two-year process that brings diverse nonprofit leaders together to center equity in their own leadership, their organizations, and the sector as a whole.

In 2022, she was selected by Lehigh Valley Business for the Forty under 40 awards. She was also selected for a 2022 Council on Foundation’s Career Pathways

Cohort, a highly competitive national leadership development program designed to diversify the talent pipeline for executive-level roles in philanthropy.

Prior to joining the foundation, Megan has held various leadership roles in a diverse set of non-profit organizations including serving as Director of Family Services at Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County and Project Manager of Strategy at Philadelphia Youth Network.

Megan currently serves as the President of the YWCA Bethlehem Board of Directors (2022-current).

Lee Butz, an Allentown native, graduated from Allentown High School in 1951. He earned a civil engineering degree from Lehigh University, and holds honorary doctorates from Lehigh, Muhlenberg College, DeSales University and the Lutheran Theological Seminary of Philadelphia.

From 1955 to 1957, he served in the U. S. Army, trained with the 101st Airborne Division, and starred on the All-Army Championship baseball team, the Ft. Knox Tankers.

He joined his father’s construction firm in 1957, pioneered the Construction Management concept, and led Alvin H. Butz, Inc. to become one of the largest construction companies in Pennsylvania.

Construction isn’t Lee’s only passion. He’s renowned for his stage photography, and has taken over 250,000 pictures at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare

Festival and DeSales’ theatre productions. Actors and directors with national experience have praised the quality of his work. Lee and PSF have published a book of Lee’s photos, Majestic Vision: The Photography of Lee Butz at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival.

Much of Lee’s focus has been on the lives of children, particularly those in Allentown. He served on the Governor’s Early Learning Commission, founded The Allentown DRIVE, a baseball program for center-city boys, and the Wm. Allen Construction Company, a student-run group that manages projects at the high school. He is president of the board of The Century Promise, a program that will change the lives of children in the Allentown School District.

Lee and his wife, Dolly, try hard to improve the quality of the lives of citizens in our community. Their children, Greg, Shari and Eric are all involved with Alvin H. Butz, Inc., with Greg serving as CEO. They’re proud of their seven grandchildren and five greatgrandchildren. Grandsons Mike and Steve Butz have become the sixth generation of Butz employees.

Marci Lesko currently serves as Executive Vice President, Chief Impact Officer and Corporate Secretary at United Way, having been part of the organization since 2006. Lesko provides leadership across the organization with a special focus on strategic technology, data operations, human resources, diversity, equity and inclusion, community impact, board development and more.

In addition to being a proud member of Women United, Lesko serves on several boards and is affiliated with community improvement efforts such as the Lehigh County Suicide Prevention Coalition, as Board Chair for Pennsylvania’s Family Support Alliance, as Vice Chair of LINC, as Board Chair of Enduring Keys, Inc., as Chair of the Ways and Means Committee of the Concourse Club of Palmerton, and as co-creator of the Lehigh Valley’s DEI Practitioner Network.

Lesko has won several distinguished awards for her work, including the Human Relations Commission (2005), The Donley Award for Children’s Advocacy (2016), Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania Take the Lead Award (2017), Community Achievement Award/Woman of Influence Award from Lehigh Valley Business (2018), the PBS39 Fred Rogers Good Neighbor Award (2018) and led United Way to receive the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center Community Leadership Award (2021).

Lesko holds a Bachelor of Science in community health education from Illinois State University (1999) and a Master of Professional Services in organization development and change management from Pennsylvania State University (2022). (she/her/hers) Native of Southeast San Diego, Tyrone Russell is an entrepreneur, community advocate, coach and DEI consultant. Tyrone graduated from Colgate University and holds a Master’s of Science degree from Shippensburg University. Identified by African American Business leader Council as Businessman of the year in 2017 and Lehigh Valley Style as one

of the region’s Most Influential Men of 2023, Tyrone works across industries helping to facilitate cultural realization sessions throughout the US and has recently worked with the Indiana Health Information Exchange, PPL Electric, Olympus Cameras of America and Air Products. He currently serves the Chief Executive Officer of Faces International Marketing and Development, LLC. Michael Seiden has extensive experience in executive management having served as the Executive Director for the Technology Programs at the University of Phoenix, Managing Consultant for Berger & Co. and Director of Information Systems for Johns Manville Corporation and President of Western International University. He has taught for a variety of academic institutions and is actively involved on the boards of several not-for-profit organizations. He has published articles for the Arizona Republic, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Arizona Business magazine, among others. The award-winning play, “Albatross”, which he commissioned and produced has played in Boston, New York, Phoenix, Maui, Edinburgh, Scotland and Dublin, Ireland. He is currently a co-producer of “The Kite Runner” which recently completed a 17 week run at the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway and will be starting a 20 week national tour in 2024. Mike hold B.S.I.E. and B.A. degrees from Lehigh and an M.S.I.E degree from Rutgers.

THANK YOU to our Program Partners

ENID M. & MICHAEL J. SEIDEN '63 '64