Bill Ballou is the Technical Director at REDCAT in Los Angeles and was the Technical Director for NBC’s presentation of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. He has coordinated construction and designed special machinery and rigging for many feature films and theater productions, including Darren Aronofsky’s Noah (2014), Julie Taymor’s The Tempest (2008), Wes Anderson’s Darjeeling Limited (2007), Mel Brooks’ The Producers (2006) and John Sayles’ City of Hope (1990). His work on music videos included crumpling three million dollars in fake bills for AD/DC’s Money Talks. He served as Faculty Head of the Technical Direction Department at the California Institute of the Arts, won the LDI Technical Director of the Year Award (2003), and was awarded a Bessie for Set Design (1997). Bill has worked on various projects at the Tank and was instrumental in its original renovation as a public assembly hall in 2013.
Foster Brashear is an inventor, engineer, and light-sculpture artist. He recently retired from Adastra Designs, Inc., a company he founded in 1974. The company designed and built a variety of amusement devices ranging from electronic basketball games to unique musical instruments (including a giant “Walking Piano” like the one featured in the Tom Hanks movie BIG.) He first visited The Tank with musician friends many years ago, at a time when playing and recording there was a clandestine affair, and the only entry was through the portal. He is committed to the continuing evolution of the Tank as a world-class Sonic Arts venue. He has been married to his wife Jill for over 40 years and is the father of five adult children.
Sandy Brown has lived in Colorado since 1988 and lives on and owns Whimsy Farm, a small fruit farm in Boulder County. Much of Sandy’s career life was spent in human service work; in particular, he spent about 20 years working with faith-based community organizations as part of the PICO National Network. He founded and Directed Congregations Building Community (CBC) in the northern front-range of Colorado. He also works as a paid consultant to non-profits in Boulder County and Denver and serves on the Boards of Directors of The Imagine! Foundation, on which he is Treasurer, and The Center for Compassionate Connections – C3. Sandy is an outdoorsman and retired mountaineer, a father of three with two grandchildren.
Sherry Finzer is an award-winning flutist and recording artist, based in Phoenix, Arizona. Sherry plays a variety of low flutes and world flutes, making music that can aid in healing, insomnia, stress relief, and meditation. She has recorded more than 25 albums, all with this focus on wellness, and she is the founder of Heart Dance Records, which features over 50 artists with a similar mission, to heal the world through music. Her radio promotions company, Higher Level Media, has promoted more than 200 releases in the New Age genre. In her spare time, Sherry enjoys exploring the Southwest both on- and off-road in her Bikini Blue Jeep Rubicon.
Roxie Fromang is a Rangely native, a graduate of Rangely High School and Colorado Northwestern Community College and a published writer. She has worked as a photojournalist for the Rio Blanco Herald Times and as a digital media marketer for the Rangely Area Chamber of Commerce. Currently she works for Rio Blanco County and the Rangely District Hospital. A ten-year member of 4-H and a State 4-H officer and FFA member, Roxie attended Casper College for an AAS degree in Animal Science and Agriculture. She has been a musician and a singer all her life, and first visited the Tank as a child, when she was already a professional singer and songwriter. Presently Roxie resides outside of Rangely near the White River on her family farm with her husband Jake, and children Alex, Taylor, Cash, and Jaxan.
Ben Gondrez describes himself as a creative technologist. He’s also an FAA certified drone pilot. He is currently an Exhibit Technician at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. For nine years, he ran the OtterBox Digital Dome Theater (planetarium) at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery. He’s also done website development and maintenance at Colorado State University and maintained a computer lab in the Aurora Public Schools. He has lots of experience working with nonprofits, worked with the Tank and Bruce Odland on the 360 Project, and has contributed drone video footage to the Tank on a couple of previous occasions, notably for the conclusion of The Tank and the West, the film and music event with Bill Morrison and Bill Frisell. He lives in Loveland, Colorado, with his wife, Sierra Tamkun.
Lisa Hatch, Treasurer, assists small businesses and non-profit organizations with procedure manuals, by-laws, grant funding, and project management. She was a member of the Rangely, Colorado, Town Council and served for 20 years as a commissioned officer in the US Army Reserves, commanding the 419th Transportation Company in Desert Storm. Past President of Rangely Community Gardens, she has also headed a local school music program for children with dyslexia.
Certified as a Change Leader by Colorado Creative Industries, Kim Keith is the Executive Director of Steamboat Creates, the arts council in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, nurturing the arts so creativity flourishes. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Colorado Humanities, the Colorado Mountain College Advisory Board, and the Routt County Economic Development Council. Before she evolved into an arts administrator, Kim worked as a creative consultant for Advocates – Building Peaceful Communities, a community-based awareness campaign, honoring the survivors of intimate partner violence helped by Advocates in their 30-year history. Part of this project included folding more than 7,000 origami doves and displaying them in the regional hospital. Kim is an accomplished artist in her own right, with work including sculptural installations, mixed media, poetry and photography.
Steve Lewis is the Global Director of Information Systems at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, a Manhattan-based law firm with offices in DC, London and Frankfurt. Steve has been working in information technology since the mid 1980’s, and came out of that generation of IT professionals who studied literature, were declared unemployable by recruiters, and then went on to successful careers. He has carried out lifelong non-careers in ukuleles, bikes, poems, and winemaking, and builds websites for fun in his spare time. Before moving fully into IT, Steve was a private investigator working scam and sting operations and was once paid to destroy a warehouse-full of counterfeit PacMan games with a crowbar and sledgehammer, work he would have gladly done for free.
Jeremiah Moore, Secretary, is a practicing sound artist and designer at Jeremiah Moore Sound, his San Francisco studio, specializing in high-craft sound with attention to environment, detail, and creative process in film, theater, radio, and other media. His projects include work with The Residents, Ai WeiWei, the Kitchen Sisters, Doug Hall, and 2016 Oscar Nominee Last Day of Freedom.
Bruce Odland, Chair, is a composer and a pioneer in the emerging field of sound installations, sound design, and sound art. His work with Sam Auinger (under the name O+A) tunes and transforms the sonic identity of public spaces. He has collaborated with Laurie Anderson, The Wooster Group, Peter Sellars, Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory, Dan Graham, Tony Oursler, and many others. He lives and works in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
Deirdre Santoscoy operated her own law firm in Colorado for more than 15 years and has a documented career of service to empower the underprivileged. She advocates for the civil rights of persons with disabilities and champions the civil rights movement for Latinos, Latinas and migrant workers on the Western Slope. She is now an associate attorney with the Riggs Abney Neal Turpen Orbison & Lewis Law Firm, which is based in Tulsa. Deirdre earned her Juris Doctor in 1995 from the School of Law at the University of Kansas, where she also received her undergraduate degree in religious studies in 1992. Deirdre works remotely from her farm on the White River near Rangely, where she keeps bees, chickens and a cow named Ultima.
Susan Schwartz is a Los Angeles-based lawyer and independent curator. Susan specializes in art law and criminal defense. She has tried more than 100 cases to verdict. Susan graduated from UCLA Law School, where she was a member of the Law Review and an editor of the Federal Communications Law Journal. Susan earned a Master of Art Business degree from Claremont Graduate University’s Center for Arts Management in 2015. She has worked with artists, choreographers and galleries in the Los Angeles area for many years. Before that, for a time in college, Susan was the scary gorilla on the Flight to Mars ride at an amusement park in Queens, New York.
Matthew Simonson is a born and raised Coloradoan, who has been involved in artistic endeavors all his life. He graduated from CU Denver with a degree in audio production and currently works as an audio producer for places like Colorado Public Radio, The Atlantic, WAMU in Washington DC, and more. He is also the creator and composer of the YouTube sound-design video series Music in Objects. In 2019 Matthew founded the independent podcast Range & Slope, featuring Colorado-centered audio documentaries, including one about the Tank and Bruce’s Detour 360 tour around the state. When he’s not pursuing stories, he might be on a road trip, or at a thrift store looking for old media, or playing his Electronic Valve Instrument (a “trumpet synthesizer”).
Tom Wasinger is a composer, arranger, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in Boulder, Colorado. He has received three Grammy Awards as the producer of the “Best Native American Music Album” in 2003, 2007, and 2009. His compositions have been used for films and programming for CBS, NBC, ABC, ESPN, HBO and Animal Planet. He has performed in many venues worldwide, including Carnegie Hall, and is an inventor and builder of experimental musical instruments.
A Rangely native, Heather Zadra is a writer and teacher who spent time in The Tank as a teenager, returned to it 20 years later to report on Tank activities for the county newspaper, and has been involved with the project ever since. She served as Operations Coordinator for The Tank and was instrumental in connecting The Tank and community members during the project’s inaugural Kickstarter campaign. Heather has taught writing and published her work, including a brief history of The Tank, in The Waving Hands Review and Home on the Rangely magazine. Heather currently lives in Grand Junction, Colorado, where she works for Mesa County as a public health outreach coordinator.
Emerita
Lois LaFond is a premier American artist making music for young children. Her 25-year career combined touring the US–including the New Orleans Jazz Fest–with her band, Lois LaFond & The Rockadiles, and producing six recordings of original world music, which have won awards including the Nappa Gold. She spent many years dedicated to the Tank and currently teaches English to immigrants in Boulder, Colorado, where she lives and works.