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The art
of managing
In 1996 the hot Atlanta sun was beating down on Laura Swanstrom
Reece as she directed the movements of 450 butterflies. Or rather
teenagers dressed as butterflies, not to mention 50 adults playing
“Southern Spirits.” Swanstrom Reece was applying skills
gained from her recently earned Emory degree in art history as she
worked in a production department for the Olympics, making sure
her fluttery performers were in the right place at the right time
for opening and closing ceremonies. She even carried off students
who fainted in the heat. “It was the hardest I ever worked
in my life,” she said. “I didn’t sleep for four months.”
That was the start of Swanstrom Reece’s career in event planning
and organization, which has led to her position as coordinator of
alumni programs at AU. After her Olympics job ended, Swanstrom Reece
moved into a D.C. townhouse with a friend and found a job managing
a corporate membership program at the Smithsonian. She later left
to study arts management at AU, but missed working. “I got
so lonely—I had to be around people,” said Swanstrom Reece.
The AU job opened up in February 2002 and Swanstrom Reece took it.
She graduated with her master’s degree that May, the first
person in her family to earn an advanced degree, and stayed on in
the Office of Development.
Swanstrom Reece’s involvement with the arts goes beyond directing
butterflies and taking classes; her years of modern and ballet dance
classes led to a stint during college as a paid performer with the
Atlanta-based Ondine and Company. Still, managing alumni events
has been a close enough parallel to managing arts programs to satisfy
Swanstrom Reece, who now gets her arts fix outside of her job. She
volunteers on the Contemporaries Steering Committee for the Phillips
Collection, raising funds for photography acquisition. Even more
exciting for her, the house in Alexandria that she and her husband
recently bought is home to their own fledgling art collection. “I
made my first art purchase last year,” she exclaims. It’s
a print by Washington color school artist Gene Davis that Swanstrom
Reece found in a New York City gallery. “It’s right there
above the fireplace.”
—EDJ
Photo by
Jeff Watts
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