Gallo Center CEO retiring. Here’s what she’s planning on doing next

Calling it her “life’s great work,” Lynn Dickerson will retire later this year as CEO of the Gallo Center for the Arts.

“I have loved this job,” Dickerson, who turns 63 this month, said in a phone interview. “I want to retire while I’m still healthy and fit. I know more than anyone that life can change at any moment.”

She’s been planning retirement since the fall of 2019, when she told Gallo Center Board Chairman Evan Porges.

“He asked me to stay on a couple more years and I agreed,” she said in an email. “Then when COVID hit and stayed, it became apparent to me that what was best for the Gallo Center was to have someone in the top leadership role who is going to be here long-term to help the center reopen and adjust to the changes that might be necessary for future operations. So last summer I gave a year’s notice. Since that time I’ve worked hard to keep the ship afloat during these unprecedented hard times.”

Porges said he’s disappointed to see Dickerson leave, but is “excited for her to finally be able to slow down a little bit.” He’s also excited by the work she’s accomplished and for leaving the center “a legacy as a nationally renowned performing arts theater here in Modesto.”

Marie Gallo spearheaded the decade-long process to bring the Gallo Center to Modesto; it opened in 2007. Julie VanderWall, daughter of Marie Gallo and also a Gallo Center board member, thanked Dickerson in an email statement.

“On behalf of the Gallo family, I want to thank Lynn Dickerson for her hard work and her dedication to the Gallo Center for the Arts. Under Lynn’s guidance as Chief Executive Officer, the Center has continued to flourish as a place for the arts in our community, the dream of my mother, Marie Damrell Gallo, and the other founders of this great institution.”

Pandemic’s challenge

Dickerson’s leadership has been key during the pandemic, Porges said. The center has been shut down since March.

“Obviously this last year has not been very much fun, but (retirement) was in the works before the pandemic,” Dickerson said. “I wanted to make sure I saw the center through the storm and I think by June we will be through the storm.”

Her final day as CEO will be June 30, but Dickerson will stay on part-time to book shows for two more seasons and help with the learning curve if the new CEO lacks that experience.

She knows plenty about the challenges of learning how to successfully book shows for the downtown Modesto venue, given she had never worked in the performing arts.

But the center’s board took a chance, hiring a person with a business background and close ties to the community to stem the financial losses of the then two-year-old nonprofit, she said.

When she arrived, operating losses were about $2 million each year and the center was carrying a $12.5 million debt.

Dickerson’s experience was in newspaper publishing. She first moved to Modesto from Texas in 2000 to be publisher of The Modesto Bee. In 2006, Sacramento-based McClatchy named her vice president of operations with oversight for a third of the company’s newspapers.

Following a corporate restructuring, Dickerson returned to Modesto in 2009 to run the Gallo Center.

“When the board took a bet on me, it was because I knew how to run a business and that was what the Gallo Center needed more than anything,” she said.

Dickerson also knew and loved the Modesto community, she said, which proved important for donor support.

Modesto saw her through tragedy

Modesto also was important for her, personally. While Dickerson started her new job for McClatchy in 2006, her family waited until youngest son Ryan finished school before moving to Sacramento in 2007.

Just 10 days after that move, Ryan died at age 18 in a swimming-related accident.

They had no friends or support system in the Sacramento area, she said, and it was their friends in Modesto who saw them through the tragedy.

“Our Modesto friends were incredibly good to us,” Dickerson said. “Literally someone drove from Modesto every day (for seven weeks) to check on (us).” Friends continued to visit them regularly for months.

She learned entertainment on the job

Knowing the area helped her quickly learn the entertainment portion of her new job. Her most successful move was “tweaking our programming to be much more in line with what the population of our community wanted to see,” she said.

So instead of more “artsy and esoteric” shows booked the first two years, Dickerson brought in genres such as comedy and classic rock, as well as Latino artists.

“All of a sudden we started selling more tickets,” she said.

“Also, some of our major donors were very generous in offering matching funds to help us get operations going in the right direction. For instance, in those first two years, major donors matched up to $750,000 if we raised a like amount from other donors. Fortunately we were able to do that and it made a huge difference in turning things around financially and positioning us for success.“

The center’s financial books were in the black for the first time at the end of fiscal year 2009-10 — her first year at the helm — and remained so until the pandemic, she said. Today, the debt is down to $720,000.

She said switching up what shows to bring in was part instinct, but knowing the community also gave her “a good sort of gut feel for who our patron was. Some (shows) worked, some didn’t.”

She was there on the night of performances to see how people responded and to listen to comments. “That was really a huge part of how I learned to do what I did.”

Frequent patrons of the Gallo Center know she continued to be there on most opening nights throughout her tenure, going on stage to introduce shows.

“It makes me very sad to realize I have introduced my last show and didn’t even realize it at the time,” she said in an email, referring to the sudden pandemic shut down.

Happily, one concern about introducing shows was never realized. “I never fell down on stage — one of my big fears — even when I had a broken foot (in 2019) and went out on a knee scooter or in a walking cast.”

Booking shows became her favorite part of the job. “It became incredibly satisfying to chase a show, get it booked, market it, get people to see it and be successful,” she said, calling it the “thrill of the chase.”

As for when the center might reopen, “We don’t know, but we’re obviously at the mercy of when the county allows us to have mass gatherings again,” she said. They’re hoping to reopen by late July with a YES Company production, then more shows later that month and in August with acts that had to be rescheduled because of the pandemic.

A full 2021-22 season has already been booked, she said, mostly with shows from the 2020-21 season that never went on sale because of the shutdown.

When the center does reopen, they’d follow conditions that would make it safe for people to come back, she added.

Achievements at the center

Helping the Gallo Center become financially viable remains her greatest accomplishment, she said.

“The byproduct of that is that the Gallo Center has changed our community in so many ways. We have a $15 million economic impact annually in Modesto,” she said, with market research showing 80 percent of patrons spend money downtown as well as at the venue.

Porges agreed that Dickerson’s greatest achievement will be leaving the Gallo Center almost debt free. “That was her goal 12 years ago,” he said.

Stanislaus County Supervisor Mani Grewal, a former Modesto City Council member, said the Gallo Center has been a huge asset to the community as a whole, which “wouldn’t have been possible without Lynn Dickerson.”

She ran it like a business, Grewal said, and “worked on partnerships with the county and the city, stakeholders and community. She was the perfect person at the right time to lead the Gallo Center.”

She’s said she’s proud of several other achievements, including the center’s Arts Education Program, which brings in schoolchildren to enjoy “high quality entertainment that many of them might never get a chance to see,” as well as taking over youth production group YES Company, in partnership with the Stanislaus County Office of Education.

Dickerson also cited establishing a stellar reputation in the entertainment world. At first it was hard to get acclaimed entertainers to come to a smaller location, but over time the center became known as a great place to perform that could fill the house and had a first-rate crew.

“These entertainers leave here really impressed and I’m proud we’ve created that reputation,” she said.

She said in an email that 90 percent of the artists were “great to work with and fun to meet.” Having grown up in Jasper, Texas, she “had a few fun East Texas connections with Clint Black, Clay Walker, Tracy Byrd and Neal McCoy which was really special.”

She said she’s worked with a staff of “amazing,” mostly younger people at the center and “learned as much from them as they learned from me.”

“I haven’t done this by myself,” she added. “I’ve had a great team at the Gallo Center, and the donor base and community have been very supportive.”

Al Poulus, chief operating officer at the center, said in an email that he’s “learned a great deal from Lynn. She’s a very effective leader with strong business acumen and outstanding communication skills ... I will miss her very much.”

Looking for the next CEO

She and Porges agree that the next CEO also needs a strong business background.

“Lynn is only the second person to have had the job ... and what we’ve learned is the (next CEO) is going to have to be business savvy,” Porges said. “Secondly, if I could wave a magic wand, they would be from the region so they would know our community.”

The board is currently looking to fill the position, he said, and information is on the center’s website, www.galloarts.org.

Dickerson looks forward to spending time with husband Ron, 66, who also is retired. Their son Ross, 36, lives in Sacramento.

“Not a girl that idles well,” she plans to work on the litter and blight problem in the Modesto region, as well as serve on some corporate boards.

“I hate the litter problem worse than anything,” she said, adding that the city will be starting a blight committee and she plans to join it. “It’s a complex problem.”

The Dickersons plan to stay in Modesto for now. “We love Modesto and we love the community and we have a lot friends,” she said. “But California is an expensive place to live.”

Her connection to the Gallo Center will remain.

“There’s nothing about my almost 12 years there that I’m not proud of,” she said. “I’m grateful that when life was so low, I was able to come back to Modesto and then have so much success.

“I will leave there with so much love in my heart for that place and so much love for the team and the community.”

This story was originally published February 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM.