Crystal Bridges announces new hires

BENTONVILLE — There are some new faces at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art as the museum added four new employees to its museum relations team. The staff also said goodbye to a friend who has been with the museum since it was built. 

Those who joined the museum staff are: Randy Graham as the museum’s group tours manager; Anne Jackson as development coordinator; Alison Nation as project coordinator; and Nathan Pollet as manager of special events.

Facilities Director David Burghart has retired after spending three years overseeing the museum’s construction process.

Graham
Graham’s role is to organize, staff, facilitate and promote group tours to Crystal Bridges. The museum expects to have a total of more than 450 groups having visited Crystal Bridges by the end of 2012. Graham has a variety of experience that contributes to his success as a group tour manager, including leading group tours in Branson, MO; serving as director of parks and recreation in Lamar, MO; and working as a small business owner and student minister.
Graham is a graduate of East Texas Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Jackson
Anne Jackson comes to Crystal Bridges from the Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Northwest Arkansas, Inc., where she served as development director since 2008. At Crystal Bridges, she will coordinate a wide range of integrated development projects related to the identification, research, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship of sponsors and donors for the museum.

Jackson holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism, advertising, and public relations from the University of Arkansas.

Nation
Alison Nation has recently transitioned into the role of project coordinator for the museum’s communications division. In this role she is the first point of contact for the initiation of all communications projects including those of a creative, marketing, or public relations nature.

Nation has been with Crystal Bridges since December 2008, serving as administrative assistant for education and then as senior administrative assistant for the Art and Education department. Nation’s previous work experience includes creative director at YouCAN!’s Community Imagination Studio in Fayetteville.

She holds a bachelor’s of fine arts degree in Studio Arts with a minor in art history from the University of Oklahoma, and a master of fine arts degree in ceramics and sculpture from the University of Arkansas. 

Pollet
Nathan Pollet is the manager of special events at Crystal Bridges, overseeing both internal and external events, as well as rentals of museum facilities.
Pollet spent 15 years with the Disney Company, including five years as the house manager for Michael Eisner, the former CEO, and three years as an Imagineer in the company’s theme park design branch.

Pollet holds a bachelor of communications degree with emphasis in protocol from Palm Beach Atlantic University, Palm Beach, Fla.; and a master’s degree in landscape architecture from Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona, Calif.

Burghart
In 2008, David Burghart, who had earlier retired from a long career managing the construction of Walmart stores across the country, agreed to come out of retirement to lend his considerable expertise to Crystal Bridges during the museum’s construction phase.