(CelebrityAccess MediaWire) –The Entertainment and Services Technology Assocation (ESTA) Board of Directors has created the ESTA Foundation. For the past few years, ESTA members have been working on providing entry-level entertainment technicians with the essential skills necessary to practice their craft.
Set up as a 501(c)3 organization, ESTA's Technical Education Committee and its subcommittees – Essential Skills, Publications & Assessments and Seminars & Training – have been moved under the auspices of the Foundation.
Members of the inaugural Board of Directors are: Chair, Bill Price – director of systems, Barbizon; Vice-Chair, Rick Rudolph – executive vice president, Stage Equipment & Lighting; Secretary/Treasurer, Mark Heiser – managing director, New York State Theatre at Lincoln Center; and Directors Gavin Berger – director of concert halls, Lincoln Center Inc.; Bill Groener – vice president of sales for North America, Color Kinetics; Michael Peitz – executive director, Educational Theatre Association; Lori Rubinstein – executive director, ESTA; David Saltiel – partner, Bell, Boyd & Lloyd; Robert Scales – Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California; Frank Stewart – owner, Specialty TECH Services; and Jim Utterback – training director, IATSE Local 22. Andrea Sussman – vice president, KSA-Plus Communications, is serving as special consultant to the board. — Jane Cohen and Bob Grossweiner