Norman Rockwell Museum Expands Senior Leadership and Innovation Plans

08:38AM / Friday, January 28, 2022Print Story | Email Story

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.— Norman Rockwell Museum (NRM) announced the recent addition of new executive positions.

Joining the team is Sue Elliott, appointed to the Museum's newly created position of Chief Audience Officer; she will oversee the newly formed Audience Engagement division. Elliott joins recently appointed staff Alyssa Blumenthal, the new Director of Public Operations and Visitor Engagement, and Chris Kupernik, Director of Facilities and Safety.

"These exemplary leaders with diverse experience and new perspectives from beyond the museum world, join forces with our accomplished professional team to play integral roles in ongoing strategic development, equity, access, inclusion, and innovation at NRM," said Director/CEO Laurie Norton Moffatt.

As the Museum strives to meet future goals the organization has reorganized around serving audiences with enhanced research and data analysis. During the pandemic, participation by new audiences grew with web-based programs and events, reaching new international audiences and expanding civic engagement. A key element to this growth is balancing resources devoted to onsite exhibitions and programming with the opportunity to engage world-wide audiences through online offerings.

NRM's new Chief Audience Officer, Sue Elliott, will work with curatorial, digital, visitor, and education teams and local, national, and international collaborators to transform the way in which the museum creates programming that engages people of all ages through in-person and online activities and events.

"I am honored to join NRM at this pivotal time, continuing my life's work of bringing people together to create a more civil society through shared artistic experiences. By expanding and diversifying our engagement efforts for both in-person and online visitors of all ages, in the Berkshires and around the world, and reconsidering the ways in which we build community, NRM looks boldly forward to greater connectivity and impact in the future," Elliott said. I look forward to collaborating with illustrators, curators, educators, and our current and future audiences for many years to come."

A new Audience Engagement division will incorporate and build on the work that Rich Bradway has led for six years as Director of Digital Learning & Engagement. Bradway's role will expand to that of Digital Innovation Officer. This larger, dedicated digital arm of the Museum will incorporate additional technology, data, and digital production support. Museum is currently seeking to hire a Technology Coordinator.

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Lee Wants Bioremediation in Housatonic River Vernal Pool Study

05:24AM / Thursday, September 03, 2026

LEE, Mass. — The town has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric to include PCB bioremediation in its vernal pool study on the Housatonic River.

Lee officials are urging the EPA to require GE to add a bioremediation treatment arm to the vernal-pool study or provide the public with a clear explanation for why such testing is being excluded.

"This is exactly the kind of question EPA and GE should be asking before final remedy decisions are locked in," Select Board Chair Bob Jones said in a statement released to the press. "The town is not asking to slow the cleanup. We are asking EPA and GE to make the cleanup smarter, less destructive, and more protective over the long term."

An open house was held in Pittsfield earlier this summer for the Vernal Pool Pilot Study on Reach 5A of the Housatonic River, a five-mile stretch between the river's confluence and Lenox border.

EPA has required GE to conduct a Vernal Pool Pilot Study as part of the Housatonic River Rest of River remediation, comparing excavation and restoration with activated-carbon-based treatments, including a product called SediMite and powdered activated carbon, the town said.

Ten vernal pools will be cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls in total, five with excavation and five with active carbon, and seven additional vernal pools will be monitored as controls. Construction will be complete around October, but the pools will be left to their natural processes and monitored with surveys and sampling for three years.

The Lee PCB Advisory Committee wrote a letter calling for the 21st-century approach it said could reduce long-term toxicity, avoid unnecessary destruction of sensitive habitats, and improve the effectiveness of the cleanup.

It states that Lee supports the study's purpose and agrees that EPA and GE must understand how cleanup activities affect sensitive vernal-pool ecosystems.

"The current pilot includes 10 treatment pools and seven control pools, while local officials understand that roughly 100 vernal pools may occur in the broader remediation corridor," the Aug. 27 letter reads.

"That makes the pilot study consequential: the methods tested now could shape how many sensitive wetlands are excavated, reconstructed, treated, or left with PCBs managed in place."

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