New Trustee Class Begins Term Today 

CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. — Chautauqua Institution’s Board of Trustees elected Paul Hagman, Jesse Marion and Gwen Adams Norton to four-year terms of service at the final meeting of the body’s 2020–21 cycle on Aug. 28. Additionally, members of the Chautauqua Corporation elected Rick Evans as the newest of the four trustees selected by Chautauqua property owners at the Corporation’s annual meeting on Aug. 14. The new trustee class officially begins its term today, Oct. 1.  

Hagman is a Youngstown, Ohio-based architect. After studying architecture and urban design in Florence, Italy, and Cleveland, he became the founder of RBF Colab Architecture, a heritage preservation firm providing design and consulting throughout the Northeast. He has been attending Chautauqua for nearly a decade and is looking forward to increasing his family’s time spent at the Institution in the coming years. 

Marion, of Houston and Napa, California, is the founder of Millennium Seismic Ltd., a Calgary, Alberta-based company; currently he serves as CEO and president of Integrated Corrosion Companies (formerly Brance-Krachy). His career in the geophysical industry spans more than 30 years. Marion and wife Cathy, a native of Chautauqua County, are longtime Chautauquans. 

Norton, who lives in New York City, has had a 28-year career in banking and finance. She has served as a Senior Vice President and the Business Banking Executive for Wachovia Bank, Chief Operating Officer and Vice President for Banco Popular of Puerto Rico in the Virgin Islands, and the Commissioner of Finance for the Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands. She and her husband are relative newcomers to Chautauqua, having visited during summer for four years. 

Evans is a San Antonio-based attorney with a five-generation family history at Chautauqua. In his 65 summers at Chautauqua, he has been intimately involved in the community, from attending Children’s School and Boys’ and Girls’ Club to serving as co-president of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra League and now co-running the Grapevine community message board. 

“It is a privilege to welcome these highly accomplished and gifted individuals to our trustee table, and I’m so appreciative of their commitment and service to the work and mission that defines Chautauqua Institution,” said Candace Maxwell, chair of the Chautauqua Institution Board of Trustees. “As we continue to live into the ambitious goals of our strategic plan, 150 Forward, and confront the challenges presented by a world in flux, these new trustees’ voices will be critical to keeping Chautauqua moving upward and forward while ever mindful of what makes our community and history special.” 

ABOUT CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION 

Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer — and year-round through the CHQ Assembly online platforms — with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue.  

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