David Tanner joined the WCR Center for the Arts as the Executive Director in December 2024. “We are excited and proud to welcome David Tanner as the WCR’s Executive Director. His valued experience and leadership will positively impact our organization and the Downtown Reading Arts Community,” said Jayme Rhoads, President, WCR Board of Directors.
Tanner served for twelve years as the Director for the Center for the Arts, Albright College, Reading, PA, until he was promoted to Dean, Arts & Cultural Resources. During his 14 years at Albright, Tanner managed the Freedman Gallery, serving as director and curator for nine years. He collaborated with student groups, academic departments and community organizations to expand Albright’s arts programs to more than 150 annual events, which received many national awards during his tenure. Tanner also established the arts administration academic program for which he advised and mentored students and taught all courses.
During his last two years at Albright, he was given oversight of planning for the Black Cultural Collection, the Lakin Holocaust Memorial Resource Center, and the College Archives, while also leading the campus-wide Event Planning & Implementation division.
“I am thrilled to take on a leadership role for this important community organization, and I’m grateful to all those Board members, volunteers, and prior staff who have served the WCR Center for the Arts so diligently and well. This historic treasure has a very special place in my heart as it served as the perfect venue for my own wedding. I can’t wait to get the community more involved in the great things that happen in this beautiful facility,” said Tanner.
Previously Tanner served as the COO of the Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY, where he shared leadership duties in opening that museum’s new 84,000 sq. ft., $32-million, silver LEED certified, state-of-the-art facility. For five years he managed business operations as the Associate Director for Administration at the Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN, and from 1998 to 2003 he was the Executive Director for the Association of Midwest Museums (AMM), one of eight regional, professional service organizations affiliated with the American Association of Museums (AAM). While in St. Louis, MO, where AMM was headquartered, he also taught in the graduate program for museum studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Before switching over to the arts, he was the Executive Director of two small history museums, the West Bend Historical Society in Wisconsin and the Peoria Historical Society in Illinois.
Tanner is an active member of the museum profession, serving at the national level as both a grant reviewer for the Institute of Museum and Library Services and as a peer reviewer in AAM’s Museum Assessment Program. Additionally, he served on the board for the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries and participated in planning numerous conferences for the profession. Locally, Tanner has served on the board of directors for the PA American Region, and as secretary for the College Heights Community Council, and has volunteered for committees and events for the Reading Science Center and Humane PA.
Tanner holds a MPA in museum administration from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale (SIUC) as well as three bachelor degrees, in English, history, and paralegal studies, also from SIUC. As part of that program, he interned in the summer of 2002 at the Institute of Texan Cultures, University of Texas-San Antonio, where he ran all the merchandise kiosks during the Texas Folklife Festival.
Tanner also has a personal history with the performing arts, serving as a producer and acting in local community theatre groups in Wisconsin and Illinois. His strongest artistic passion has always been dance, and he has formal training in ballet and modern as well as extensive experience with tribal fusion, an international form of group improvisational belly dance that borrows from flamenco as well as ethnic traditions of dance from Egypt, Afghanistan, Turkey, Lebanon, Africa and India. Tanner lives with his husband, Bruce Kimball, in Sinking Spring, and both are avid 2-D and 3-D art collectors, and enjoying entertaining, travel and spending quality time with family and friends.
WCR is always gratefully accepting donations! Go to https://www.wcrcenter.org/donate