Directors
The Board of Directors meet monthly and is the governing body responsible for CCAC policies and operations. Each Board Member is Chairperson for one or more of the Committees that carry out CCAC’s work.
2024 Board of Directors
President: Christine Parent
Christine is a graduate of Barnstable High School after which she received her business degree from Saint Michael’s College. She currently is a Portfolio Manager, Officer AVP at The Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod where she focuses on Small Business. Prior to that she was the Operations Manager for Cape & Plymouth Business Magazine. She is currently the President of the Barnstable Boys Volleyball Booster Club and has served on the Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod’s Charitably Giving Board.
Vice President: Willow Shire
Willow is an artist and business person living on Cape Cod. She has been a member of the Cape Cod Art Center for 20 years, on the board for 8 years and she served as President in 2011 and 2012. She was also President of the Eastham Painters Guild from 2010 to 2020. As an executive consultant, she focused on corporate governance, leadership development and organizational change. She is active in several director education organizations and served as an independent director for the TJX Companies, best known for their TJMaxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods stores, where she chaired the Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee. Prior to consulting, she spent 18 years with the Digital Equipment Corporation/Hewlett Packard. Willow is involved with the arts and humanities community and served on the board for the US Fund for UNICEF New England Region.
Treasurer: Eric Ennes
Eric Ennes is the Chief Financial Officer of OpenCape. Based in Barnstable Village, OpenCape is a nonprofit organization that owns and operates a fiber optic network designed to improve the quality of life and expand economic opportunity throughout Cape Cod, the Islands and Southeastern Massachusetts. In his role, Eric is focused on developing business strategies and implementing financial processes & controls to meet the challenges of organic growth and new business opportunities. Prior to OpenCape, Eric held many different senior executive positions at major investment management firms including Barings LLC and Fidelity. Born and raised in Dighton, MA, he is a graduate of Bryant University in Smithfield RI. Eric and his wife, Cindy, settled in Yarmouth Port full-time in early 2020. Cindy is now a full time artist and an active member of the Cape Cod Art Center, and they are both involved in the local community. Eric has an affinity for non-profit volunteerism, and is on our board, and on the Board of the Southeastern Chapter of the American Red Cross. Previously, on the Cape, he had also served on the board of Sail Cape Cod, non-profit that provides community sailing opportunities, including adaptive boating for the disabled.
Secretary: Ann Canedy
Ann was born and lived in Baltimore, Maryland until moving to Cape Cod in 1991. She graduated from George Washington University and New England School of Law and began working as a social worker and a court advocate for adolescent foster children. Later, as an attorney, Ann practiced at a small firm in Harwich until becoming a legislative aide to Senator Henri Rauschenbach and then a town councilor in 2003. Ann is retired as an attorney and is a member of Hyannis Rotary, the Cape Cod Hospital Auxiliary Board, Episcopal Woman of St. Mary’s Church Board (past president) and a former town councilor in Barnstable. She enjoys swimming, boating, traveling, reading, writing and photography.
Executive Director: Roberta Miller
Roberta is a graduate of the University of MA, Amherst and has a Masters in Education and had a 23 year career in education as a media specialist, information technology expert and an Adjunct Professor at Framingham State College teaching technology courses for Educators in the MEd program. While Roberta spent part of her childhood on Cape Cod, she and her husband David moved here full time in 2004 and she quickly became active in the Cape Cod Art Center. She first joined the Board in 2005, served as our president and then volunteered as our full time, unpaid Executive Director. Roberta is an accomplished photographer and is very active in the Barnstable community. She is the Chair of the Barnstable Village Cultural District and a partner in the Hyannis Cultural District.
Directors
Katharine Berry– Katherine is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado where she majored in Graphic Design and Art Education. She designed audio visual teaching programs for a hospital and designed and illustrated work for faculty of Smith College. She took watercolor classes with Jane A. Heryerdahl and has studied with Mary Moquin and Ed Chesnovitch.
Barbara Braman
Barbara attended Bates College and was the first woman editor of the student newspaper. After graduation, she worked as a technical writer and editor, writing technical documentation and user training manuals for the IT department of an insurance company. She has lived on Cape Cod for 23 years. She was a founding member of the Asian Culture Society of Cape Cod, a non-profit that supports families with adopted children from Asia and transracial families. While a parent at the Waldorf School of Cape Cod, she helped start the school’s store, acting as buyer. She has also been on the governing body of the Unitarian Church of Cape Cod. Barbara has been a digital artist and has worked in the media for the last decade. She teaches workshops at the art center and regionally. She is a juried member of the CCAC.
Debra Kennedy
Deb Kennedy has been a member of the Cape Cod Art Center for many years and a juried artist for most. As an artist, she works in oils, and has taught beginning oils classes for the Sandwich Arts Alliance. In addition to her life as an artist, she is currently semi-retired but still works as an executive coach and leadership development specialist with Keystone Partners in Boston and in private practice. Over the course of a long career, she was a seasoned business leader with proven results and a broad background in leading organizations, launching new business units and looking for innovative solutions. Deb spent more than 25 years in corporate leadership in the energy industry and higher education. As a General Manager in the energy industry, she led finance and marketing business divisions, redesigning processes within established operating units to enhance performance and profitability. Most recently, as the founding Director of Executive Education at Bentley University, she launched the business unit and excelled in designing and facilitating innovative leadership programs for corporations as well as teaching Global Strategy. Credentials include: MBA, Babson College, Wesley Ma, BSBA, Finance, University of Toledo, IPEC Professional Coaching Certification.
Barbara Panico
I am honored and I hope that my past experience in fundraising, communication and volunteering will make me an asset to the Board. I have collaborated on annual campaigns for the Connecticut Children’s Law Center and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center as well as serving on PTO Boards for five years. My husband David and I split our time between North Eastham and Avon, CT and have three grown children. I am a Juried Artist member of our CCAC and look forward to seeing the center thrive for another 75 years.
Jane Reed
She is the daughter of a noted medical illustrator who also painted landscapes and western art his entire life. As a child living in Maryland, her favorite field trips were visiting the National Gallery of Art. No school field trip could ever compare! She moved to Michigan in 1960 and in junior high read a book called Paintbox Summer that introduced her to Peter Hunt and the apprentices at his studio in Provincetown. In Michigan, she later studied elementary education at tiny Adrian College, raised her family and taught elementary school for 39 years. In 2012, she met Alan (who is an amazing artisan), moved to Nantucket in 2013 and was fortunate to spend 3 1/2 years there soaking up art events and collecting Nantucket artists’ art. They moved to Cummaquid in 2017.
Lynn Richards has a masters degree in public health nursing from Boston College. She moved to the Cape in 1977 and was a visiting nurse for many years. In the early 1990’s, when her children were getting older, she did something that she had always wanted to do, take art classes. She took classes in many different media at CCAC, then called the Cape Cod Art Association. In an oil painting class with Howard Bush, she found her medium. After a few years of classes, Howard encouraged her to go through the jury process and she became a juried member. She also joined the board of CCAA in the 1990’s and designed and produced the original monthly Palette Newsletter, a one page, black and white mailer typed out on an Apple 2E computer using a primitive version of Photo Shop. After a decade or so hiatus when her studio became an arts and crafts studio for grandchildren, she picked up her brushes about 7 years ago and returned to her happy place at CCAC for oil painting classes. During the pandemic, she joined the Monday Painters, a group of artists who sell their artwork on the Dennis Green every Monday throughout the summer. From these generous artists Lynn learned to display and price her work and experienced validation of selling. The CCAC gift shop has also outlet for her cards and prints and miniature paintings. Lynn is delighted to return to the CCAC board. She has served on several other non-profit boards, including a six year stint as Board Chair of Cape Cod Academy and currently a board member of the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth.
John Schiraga
My interest in photography started 50 years ago. As both my camera and my darkroom/post processing skills have developed, so has my interest in joining with other photographers and sharing my knowledge. I am a Juried Artist in Photography at the Cape Cod Art Center and I am involved in five camera clubs and the Cape Cod Digital Art Group, of which I play a leadership role in three: one being the Co-Chair of the Cape Cod Camera Club. I look forward to joining the Board of the Cape Cod Art Center so that I can be a liaison with the Camera Club and support the leadership of the Cape Cod Arts Center.