William Busta is a cultural historian and gallerist who presents exhibitions of works of art of our time and of our place.  He received a B.A. from Baldwin Wallace College in 1972; an M.A. in History and Museum Studies from Case Western Reserve University in 1976; and continued his studies at Case Western Reserve through the 1990s, investigating how collective choices create cultural landscapes.  He has worked as a writer for a business magazine; Director of the Dacotah Prairie Museum in Aberdeen, South Dakota; a problem resolution specialist for the Internal Revenue Service; and, for the past 26 years, director of William Busta Gallery in Cleveland.  He won the Martha Joseph Award of the Cleveland Arts Prize in 2014.

Brian A. Friedman is the Executive Director of the Northeast Shores Development Corporation. Over the last ten years, he has developed and implemented programs to increase commercial and residential investment in the neighborhood. A significant initiative of Northeast Shores is the development of the Waterloo Business District into a regional arts and entertainment district. Recently, Northeast Shores advocated and received over $9 million in public and philanthropic support to move this initiative forward. Prior to Northeast Shores, Brian A. Friedman was the Executive Director of the South Lorain Community Development Corporation, where he developed programs to increase homeownership and investment. In addition, he was a Budget/Policy Analyst at the Legislative Budget Office for the State of Ohio General Assembly. Brian A. Friedman is a graduate of both The College of Wooster and The Ohio State University. He is a founding board member for Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, Lakeshore Intergenerational School and an active board member for VASJ High School.

Michael Gill is a writer and editor. Currently he is Executive Director of the Collective Arts Network, and Editor and Publisher of CAN Journal. Previously he was marketing director at Beck Center for the Arts (1994 – 2001), staff writer at Lakewood Sun Post (2001-2002), writer and eventually Senior Editor / Arts at the Cleveland Free Times (2002-2008) and Arts Editor at Cleveland Scene (2008 – 20011). He has won multiple awards for coverage of the arts and cultural affairs in Northeast Ohio. A native Clevelander, he attended St. Ignatius High School and earned a BA at Hiram College (1986), followed by an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University (1988). He lived in England, Wales, Washington, DC, and Quito, Ecuador before returning to Cleveland. He is a wood block and letterpress printer, and his small edition artist books for children have been exhibited at William Busta Gallery and Tregoning and Company.

Nancy Heaton has been the Executive Director of BAYarts since July 2005. She graduated from Kent State University in 1978 with a degree in Marketing Communications;  she has taken fine art classes at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, San Francisco Institute of Art and at BAYarts. She has lived in lived in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Washington DC and England where she ingratiated herself into the art communities and spent endless hours in the great museums. She was a guest lecturer at Newcastle Polytechnic in Newcastle England where she worked on grant funded film projects. She is active in arts advocacy efforts in greater Cleveland. She lives in Bay Village and has 3 daughters.

Wally Lanci is an owner and Corporate Counsel of Consolidated Solutions, a comprehensive producer of marketing initiatives.  Consolidated has the brightest minds and the most advanced equipment to bring a clients brand to market.  From full-color printed marketing materials, branded uniforms and direct mail, to electronic solutions for client efficiency, Consolidated helps their clients to push their brand in the marketplace.  Wally is a lifelong Clevelander and is a graduate of Cleveland State University with a BS in Marketing and a law degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.  Wally has previously served on the boards of Near West Theatre, Recovery Resources, Inc., Artists Archives of the Western Reserve, St. Clair Superior Development Corporation, HRC Cleveland Steering Committee, a Partner with Cleveland Social Venture Partners, and the VP of Member Involvement at Sales & Marketing Executives of Cleveland.  He currently serves as the Board Chair of the Equality Ohio Education Fund Board.

Elizabeth Maugans is an artist, co-founder and Executive Director of Zygote Press, a non-profit printmaking studio located in Cleveland, Ohio. She is the founder of the Collective Arts Network, a quarterly journal and arts network that works to promote Northeast Ohio artists and organizations to a greater audience through a quarterly journal and collective events.  She has organized one-person and thematic exhibitions featuring regional, national and internationally known artists. Her curatorial specialization is her devotion to emerging art, social justice and local experimental practices that broaden access through social networks and community-building initiatives. An advocate for artists and the visual arts, Maugans has served as a consultant for numerous organizations and art business start-ups. Her passion for cross-disciplinary partnerships includes collaborations with the North Shore Federation of Labor, The AIDS Taskforce, and Community Assessment and Treatment Services.  She is an adjunct faculty member in printmaking and drawing at the Cleveland Institute of Art. She received her BFA in printmaking from Kent State University and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1992. Maugans work is included in the Progressive Art Collection, BF Goodrich (Charlotte, N.C.) and  The Riffe Center for Government and the Arts, (Columbus, OH) collections.  She received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship in 2000 and a 2005 Artist-in-Communities Grant for “Drawing It Out”, a program that introduces creative experiences for women (reentering the community from the criminal justice system) in chemical dependency programs towards their recovery.  Maugans was awarded an Ohio Arts Council’s International Residency to Dresden, Germany in 2009. She was honored, along with her Zygote co-founder, the Martha Joseph Prize for Distinguished Service from the  Cleveland Arts Prize in 2012. In 2013, she was awarded a $20,000 Creative Workforce Fellowship from Community Partnership for Arts and Culture.

Allison Milburn, recognized by most as Alli, is known for her determination and list-making to creatively solve problems. A 2001 graduate from Ohio University with a Bachelor’s in M.I.S., she has 14 years of professional experience in the corporate, non-profit & government sectors.

Alli is a digital strategy consultant at Progressive Insurance, focusing on customer acquisition for the top-rated website in the insurance industry, Progressive.com.

Her introduction to CAN was through her husband, a professional artist, and she brings a skillset strong in project management, budgeting, leadership & data-driven decision making.