New CEO named for Modesto’s Gallo Center as it readies to reopen from COVID closure
A man who once performed on stage at the Gallo Center for the Arts will be its new chief executive officer.
Chad Hilligus, 40, will start on July 12, taking over from retiring CEO Lynn Dickerson. Her last day will be July 23, allowing for overlap so she can share her knowledge and introduce him to the community.
The new hire comes as the center plans to reopen this summer after being dark due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Dickerson has been at the helm of the nonprofit downtown Modesto arts venue since 2009. She’ll stay on in an as-needed paid consultant role for another year.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled and honored to step in and carry on Lynn’s legacy,” Hilligus said, speaking by phone from his home in Santa Fe. “She and her team have done great things there. I look forward to picking up that torch.”
Hilligus’ experience includes working at two other performing arts venues and as a singer in the touring group The Ten Tenors — including that performance at the Gallo Center.
He and his husband, Mark, left California two years ago but always looked to return, he said. “It’s where our heart is.”
“Other than the incredible reputation that the Gallo Center has, it’s a really great community and a great part of California,” Hilligus said.
He knows Dickerson, her accomplishments
He said he’s known Dickerson through the California Presenters Association, an organization that advances professional touring and presenting of the performing arts, and has “great respect for Lynn and what she’s accomplished at the Gallo Center.”
“When she informed me she would be retiring, I realized this was the opportunity we had been hoping for and I’m very pleased it worked out,” Hilligus said.
His latest job has been at Performance Santa Fe, a multi-venue organization in New Mexico, where he’s served as executive and artistic director since 2019, according to a Gallo Center press release.
Prior to Performance Santa Fe, Hilligus was director of major gifts from 2014 to 2019 at the nonprofit McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert. While at the McCallum, Hilligus also worked in programming, talent acquisition, contract negotiations, budgeting and producing special events, the press release said.
Before his time in Palm Desert, he spent three years with The Ten Tenors, a music ensemble from Australia.
He was the only non-Australian in the group, he said. That came about when he was starring as Tony in the 50th anniversary world tour of “West Side Story.” When the tour was set to go to Australia, the production had to be recast with all Australian actors.
A singer in The Ten Tenors left the group to take over the role of Tony, so they essentially traded places, Hilligus said. He performed with The Ten Tenors at the Gallo Center in 2014.
That was right before he made the move from performing to working at the McCallum Theatre.
“The life of a full-time performing artist may look glamorous, but it has many non-glamorous aspects to it,” Hilligus said. “It gets lonely on the road. I was wanting more. My goals started to change around that time and I really kind of had to face the reality that I had lost the passion for being out on the road full time.”
New CEO has business and arts experience
Gallo Center Board Chairman Evan Porges said Hilligus stood out among the 30 or so applicants for the CEO job because he has business experience at an arts center, along with the artistic side of having been a performer.
“I think he’ll add to the foundation built there by Lynn and her team,” Porges said.
He said they began advertising for the job around the beginning of this year and that they had high-quality applicants from across the nation. “I was really pleased. I attribute that to Lynn and the staff. They’ve established (the Gallo Center) as a world renowned arts center.”
Porges expects people will find Hilligus very personable. “I think he’s going to fit in well with the patrons and the community.”
Hilligus’ first challenge will be reopening a theater that’s been dark for more than a year because of the pandemic, Porges and Hilligus agreed, and to do that safely and successfully.
“It’s a critical, important and exciting time, not just for the Gallo Center, but for venues all over the world, post-pandemic,” Hilligus said. “We’re all sort of in this together.”
Reopening the Gallo Center currently is set for July 23-25, Dickerson said, with the YES Company’s 30th anniversary production – a musical revue of the local youth group’s past three decades of shows.
Although “there are still a lot of unknowns” because of the pandemic, Dickerson said the plan is to open the 1,200-seat Mary Stuart Rogers Theater at 50 percent capacity and to require masks. Tickets for the YES Company shows go on sale June 1.
Touring shows are scheduled beginning the following week with The Haggard Brothers on July 28, a rescheduled Gladys Knight show on July 29 and a rescheduled Josh Turner show on Aug. 1, Dickerson said in an email. “Unfortunately 50% capacity is not possible with those shows due to the cost of presenting them. The theater will be seated as normal with masks required.”
More shows are scheduled in August and the 2021-2022 season is set to kick off in September.
“I’ve seen the season,” Hilligus said. “It’s a really exciting season. I’m looking forward to welcoming our patrons back to the Gallo Center.”
But, as Porges said, opening is fluid, depending on county or state guidelines that could change.
Hilligus agreed, saying it will be crucial to make sure the center can pivot to any pandemic guideline changes and to communicate those to its patrons.
Fundraising is a big part of running a nonprofit artistic organization and Hilligus said people have been willing to contribute through the pandemic.
“I’ve found (in Santa Fe) and in speaking to many of my West Coast colleagues that fundraising has exceeded expectations,” he said. “Patrons want to make sure we’re around and will stay around.
“I think people are extremely excited to get back to live performances. I anticipate people stepping up in a bigger way than before because there’s going to be a renewed energy with the reopening of our theaters.”
Dickerson ‘excited’ by hire
While she still gets choked up about leaving a job she calls “a blessing,” Dickerson, 63, is pleased with the hiring of Hilligus.
“I’m excited, I think he’s a good choice,” she said. “He’s very likable, charismatic and charming. I think he’ll be well respected by the community.”
His performance background is a plus she said. “I don’t want to hand my baby off to any-old-body.”
Dickerson was part of the hiring process, Porges said. “The baton being passed needed Lynn’s blessing and that was really important to me.”
He commended Dickerson and her staff for creating a renowned Gallo Center.
The center’s board took a chance hiring Dickerson, whose background was in business and none in the entertainment industry, to stem the financial losses of the then-two-year old nonprofit, she said in a February interview when her retirement was announced.
When she arrived, operating losses were about $2 million each year and the center was carrying a $12.5 million debt.
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 in February. Today, the debt is down to $720,000.
Dickerson’s experience was in newspaper publishing, including at The Modesto Bee beginning in 2000. In 2006, McClatchy named her vice president of operations and she moved to Sacramento. Following a corporate restructuring, Dickerson returned to Modesto in 2009 to run the Gallo Center.
Dickerson said she’s told Hilligus that he’s coming to a welcoming community.
“I think it will be a really good transition and I leave with great optimism that he’s going to like it here and that our community also is going to like him and that he’ll be a big success.”
This story was originally published April 18, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
