Todd Simon is a business leader, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and lifelong supporter of the arts. He has served on Bemis Center’s Board of Directors for over three decades and has helped steward Bemis through many stages of growth and transformation.

Mr. Simon is a past Chairman and current Vice President of the Omaha Community Foundation, where he is also a member of their Strategic Planning and Impact Investing committees. He is a founding board member of United States Artists, a national arts organization that raises private money to award significant fellowships each year to America’s finest living artists in all disciplines. He is a Trustee of the Mid-America Arts Alliance and is a member of the Americans for the Arts Business Committee for the Arts. He currently chairs the Douglas County Visitor Improvement Fund committee.

In 2017, Todd was the recipient of the Humanities Nebraska Sower Award, which is presented annually to an individual who has made a significant contribution to public understanding of the arts and humanities in Nebraska. He has also been named Outstanding Volunteer Fundraiser of the Year by the Nebraska Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and in 2013 was named a Humanitarian of the Year by Inclusive Communities.

Tom Simms serves as a Director of Human Resources for Kiewit Corporation where he oversees HR programs for employees throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Currently, he leads and directs strategy for HR Business Partners (HRBPs) and the Employee Services Center of Excellence, which designs and delivers enterprise-wide HR shared-service support. His experience spans numerous lines of business focused on HR operations, data analytics, change management, HR transformation, learning management, employee relations, and leadership development. Tom is also a Certified Professional in Human Resources, a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, and is Human Capital Institute sHRBP Certified. These experiences brought Tom and his wife Natalie to Philadelphia, Charlotte, Dallas, San Francisco, Portland, and now Omaha. Tom graduated with a BS in Business Administration from Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, and completed an international program at Kingston University in London, U.K. As an active leader in the Omaha community, he currently serves as Chair of the Immigrant Legal Center Board and on the Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Midlands Board.

Chris Russell has been a leader in technology companies for 25 years, most recently as a Regional Datacenter Director for Google. In 2020 he left Google to pursue a passion for technology and business, using cutting-edge technology to facilitate and invest in businesses, startups, and nonprofits. He has been asked to speak at universities, technology conferences, and legislative committees on current technological developments and on the value of STEM-based education. Over the years, Chris has served on a number of nonprofit boards in the arts, education, and industry. He has three sons, and together they enjoy exploring the world of science and art

Marcia Kerrigan endeavors to blend her varied experiences in live event production, intellectual property legal practice, and creative startup management to provide a unique perspective to her clients. Kerrigan is owner of both Kosher Pixels, a video production company specializing in content creation for international music tours, and KPX Law, a law firm focused on protecting the intellectual property of businesses and individuals in the creative arts.

As a video director and content producer, Kerrigan toured extensively with some of the world’s largest acts, including Paul McCartney, Metallica, Elton John, Bon Jovi, James Taylor, and many others. As an attorney, Kerrigan uses her visual arts background to help protect her clients' trademarks and copyrights by blending risk mitigation with the creative’s need to promote their work.

Kerrigan graduated with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the American University, received her M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management from Portland State University, and her J.D. magna cum laude, from Creighton University School of Law. Kerrigan lives in Omaha with her husband Tim.

Arun Agarwal is a former Wall Street investment banker at Prudential Securities who has primarily focused on healthcare and real estate initiatives. Arun began his own private equity firm in 2002, returning to Omaha, Nebraska to set up a home base for White Lotus Group. White Lotus Group, under the management of Agarwal, continues to facilitate projects within the real estate and healthcare markets. The team also completed a hotel acquisition and development in Winter Park, Colorado, in 2003; a hotel acquisition and renovation in Omaha, Nebraska, in 2011; and a variety of other projects including condominiums, self-storage facilities, office space, retail space, and multi-family housing. Agarwal is a graduate of the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania of 1998, where he was awarded the Wharton Award for Academic Achievement. He serves on Metro Community College’s Foundation Board as well as the Library Foundation Board, and he chairs the Greater Omaha YMCA board.

Brian Bartels is a partner with Kutak Rock LLP, where he leads the firm’s national health and welfare benefits practice. He advises clients across the country on group health plans, wellness programs, cafeteria plans, health savings accounts, health reimbursement arrangements, and other health and welfare plans. Brian regularly counsels clients on mental health parity, No Surprises Act, HIPAA, ERISA, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and COBRA compliance issues. He drafts and negotiates service agreements and business associate agreements for employee benefit plans. Brian prepares plan-related documents, employee communications, and HIPAA policies and procedures and counsels clients on benefit plan design and administration issues. He assists employers respond to employer shared responsibility payments under the ACA, as well as inquiries from the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Labor. He also advises clients on employee benefits issues in the context of mergers, acquisitions and divestitures.

At Microsoft, Cheng is responsible for conversational AI technologies, including Bot Framework and Language Understanding Cognitive Service (“LUIS”), for Microsoft and its customers. She works with external partners around the world, ranging from start-ups to large-scale enterprises, to identify areas of collaboration, drive innovation and deliver solutions. In this capacity, she also manages Microsoft’s relationship with the conversational AI developer community. Within Microsoft, Cheng has diverse talent. She founded the Social Computing Group in Microsoft Research, and Future Social Experiences (“FUSE”) Labs. She was the Director of User Experience for Microsoft Windows, and has innovated on technical infrastructure in the areas of real-time data and search, including real-time ingestion of Facebook and Twitter firehose data on Microsoft Azure; a desktop search which unified the Windows and Office search indexes for Windows; and core search technologies for Office 365. Prior to joining Microsoft, Cheng worked in Apple Computer’s Advanced Technology Group on the User Interface research team, where she focused on QuickTime Conferencing and QuickTime VR. Her first career was as an architect in Tokyo and Los Angeles for Nihon Sekkei, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill on commercial urban design and large-scale building projects. She continues her expertise in architecture by designing an online community and partnering with the top design schools around the world for programs such as the Microsoft Design Expo. Cheng earned her bachelor's degree in architecture from Cornell University and her master’s degree from New York University. She has taught classes in Social Software, Design, and Internet Culture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

Robert Duncan is Chairman Emeritus of Duncan Aviation. Headquartered in Lincoln, NE., with 30 U.S. locations, the 2500 team members comprise the World’s largest privately-owned business aircraft service organization. Robert and Karen Duncan have supported the arts and collected visual art for more than 50 years. They have a passion for sharing their art through Assemblage, a private exhibition space in Lincoln; The Clarinda Carnegie Art Museum in their hometown of Clarinda, IA; Casa Cerrito an artist residency program in Puerto Vallarta, MX.; and their numerous business locations.

Marcus Fischer is a first-generation American musician + interdisciplinary artist who creates, collects, and transforms audio into immersive, layered soundscapes for performances and installations. His work centers around memory, collective experience, and the exploration of sound as a physical force. Utilizing assemblages of exposed speakers, tape loops, and recorded sound he creates work with slowly unfolding melodies of restraint and tension. He has released numerous recordings—both solo and collaborative—on 12k, a label that has decisively defined and developed its own concept of minimalism in the realms of experimental and ambient music. As an installation artist, he is interested in creating engaging experiences which expose the audience to ways of using sound to communicate the complexity of the human experience. Marcus contributed two sound works and two performances to the 2019 Whitney Biennial and his work is now part of the museum’s permanent collection.

Dr. Devin Fox is an Internal Medicine physician, currently serving as Vice President of Clinical Operations at Immanuel. In this role, he leads Immanuel’s Clinical Operations team, directing care and preventative services for older adults across the organization’s communities and Pathways PACE centers. Devin was previously with CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center - Bergan Mercy as Vice President of Medical Operations. He is on faculty at the Creighton University School of Medicine, and serves as a committee member of the National Board of Medical Examiners. In the greater Omaha community, Devin serves as Chair of the Josie Harper Hospice House Board of Directors, and as a Board member of the BLUEBARN Theater and the Metro Omaha Medical Society Foundation. An Omaha native, Devin and his husband, Rob, enjoy the arts and film, both locally and via their passion of travel and exploration.

Nancy Friedemann-Sanchez’s large scale drawings allude to Minimalism and the Pattern and Decoration Movement but explicitly explore the experience of identity, memory, and gender. She has a master’s degree from New York University, a BFA from Otis Art Institute and undergraduate studies from La Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. Recent Individual exhibitions include Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami; Collette Blanchard Gallery, New York; Frost Museum, Miami; Galeria Diners, Bogotá; Cheryl Pelavin Fine Arts, New York; Sheldon Memorial Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska; Queens Museum of Art, New York; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Panamá. Selected group shows include La Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador; Portland Museum of Art; The Museum of the University of New Mexico; Anina Nosei Gallery, New York; El Museo del Barrio, New York; Museo del Arte de Puerto Rico; University at Albany Art Museum; Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogotá; San Luis Obispo Art Center, California; Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, and Gasworks, London. Friedemann has been awarded a Smithsonian Artist Fellowship; a Puffin Foundation grant; a Pollock Krasner grant; a National Association of Latino Arts and Culture grant. Her work is in the collections of Jose Mugrabi, El Museo del Barrio, The Cleveland Museum, The Museum University of New Mexico, El Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Panamá, El Museo de Arte Moderno, Cali Colombia, and el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Bogotá, Colombia. She has been a resident at Art OMI, New York; Fountainhead, Miami; Tamarind Institute, New Mexico; Yaddo, New York; Gasworks, Triangle Arts Trust, London; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Nebraska; Bronx Museum for the Arts, New York; and Taller Arte Dos Gráfico, Bogotá.

Emiliano Lerda has strong non-profit board experience, having served on Bemis’s Board of Directors from 2015 to 2021, and subsequently on the Governance Committee as a non-Board member through 2023. Currently, he is co-founder and CEO of Elevator Co-Warehousing + Community in downtown Omaha. Previously, he worked for Paul G Smith Associates as Vice President (2019-2021) and as President (2021-2022), and as Executive Director of Immigrant Legal Center (ILC) from 2011 to 2019.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies at the University of Northern Iowa, becoming the first international student elected student body president. He holds a Juris Doctor from Drake University Law School with certificates in Public Service Law, Food and Agriculture Law, and International Comparative and Human Rights Law. He has a Master of Law from the University of Arkansas School of Law. He also completed the Harvard Business School’s Executive Education Program in Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management.

Lee Emma Running is an artist based in Omaha NE, who creates arresting sculptures with roadkill animal bones, kiln-cast glass, and precious metals. She also fabricates monumental public installations on windows. For the last 15 years, she has been using this work to engage audiences in conversations about the impact of human-built systems on the natural world. Lee is a 2023 Resident in the Arts/Industry program at Kohler and a 2022/23 Artist in Residence with Opera Omaha. Permanent installations of her work can be viewed at the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, the Bernheim Arboretum, and Upper Iowa University. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA, National Taiwan University of the Arts, Taipei, Taiwan, Form and Concept Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, and PACE Gallery, Council Bluffs, IA. She has also been a speaker with TEDx, Omaha, and has been awarded residencies at Ucross, Jentel, Santa Fe Art Institute, and Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts and Agriculture. Lee was a Professor of Art at Grinnell College from 2005–2020 and holds an MFA from the University of Iowa, and a BFA from Pratt Institute. She was a Bemis Underground Resident in 2005.

Polina Schlott was born and raised in Riga, Latvia, and currently resides in Council Bluffs, Iowa. She attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha and received a bachelor’s in marketing and a master’s in public administration. Polina worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as an Acquisition Professional for 15 years before dedicating herself to family and community service. She is committed to building community and has spent the last fifteen years dedicated to projects and board service. She has a long history of nonprofit Board service and currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Iowa West Foundation, Children’s Square USA, Lauritzen Gardens, Phoenix Academy, SINC, and The Nature Conservancy. More often than not, and when she takes time away from community projects, Polina can be found with her daughter and husband, sharing a passion for nature, science, gardening, music, the arts, knitting, and a constant joy of learning.

Joaquin Segura is a visual artist who lives and works in Mexico City. His artistic practice, ranging between installation, intervention, photography, and video is centered around meditations on the phenomenology of history, power, and truth. His work has been exhibited internationally since the early 2000s and belongs to numerous private and institutional collections. It also has been extensively featured in international art publications & major outlets such as Artforum, Flash Art, Adbusters, Art Papers, Código, Art Nexus, Discipline, Celeste, El País & PBS NewsHour, among many others. Segura has participated in leading residency programs in the Americas, Europe and Asia, including Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in fall 2021. In 2018, he was appointed as a fellow to the National System of Artistic Creators (SNCA) of Mexico. He is also a founding member and board advisor of SOMA, a non-profit arts organization founded in Mexico City and devoted to encouraging intergenerational dialogue and collaboration among cultural producers from diverse backgrounds.

Aaron Shaddy has been fortunate to blend professional & personal growth alongside a local community that makes this growth possible.

His career began at ConAgra Foods, where he held various roles in Finance, Accounting, and Information Technology. In 2000, Aaron transitioned to Sergeant's Pet Products as Vice President of Information Technology. That path led him to Perrigo, where he served as the Director of Business Development after Sergeant's was acquired in 2012.

Recognizing an entrepreneurial spirit, Aaron co-founded the pet product brand Tevra Brands in 2016. He then founded the pet wellness brand PetFriendly in 2018, where he currently serves as CEO.

Aaron is actively involved in supporting the local startup ecosystem and non-profit organizations. Serving on boards such as Tevra Brands, Flywheel, Retail Aware, Nebraska Angels, Maha Music Festival, Hear Nebraska, and The Union for Contemporary Art has allowed him to engage with and contribute to the community he loves.

After raising three sons here in Omaha, Aaron and his wife, Robin, enjoy time & travel with friends, family, and their dog, Nellie.

Rodrigo Valenzuela (b. 1982, Santiago, Chile) completed an art history degree at the University of Chile (2004), then worked in construction while making art over his first decade in the United States, completing a BA in Philosophy at Evergreen College and MFA at the University of Washington in 2012. Using staged scenes and digital interventions, Valenzuela's photography, video, and installation work is rooted in the contradictory traditions of documentary and fiction, often involving narratives around immigration and the working class. Valenzuela’s residencies include a Core Fellowship at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Maine); Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts; and the Center for Photography at Woodstock. Valenzuela is a recipient of several awards, including an Artist Trust Arts Innovator Award 2014, Texas Contemporary Award 2014, Stranger Genius Award 2013, and University of California Artist Research Grant 2015. Recent solo exhibitions include: 'Past | Present’, UPFOR, Portland, 2019; 'Screen Series: Rodrigo Valenzuela’, New Museum, New York, 2019; 'MASA’, Arróniz Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, 2019; 'American Type’, Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery & Light Work, Syracuse, 2019; 'Floating Borders', Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, Santa Cruz, 2018; 'American-type', Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana, 2018; 'Work in its Place', Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene, 2018; 'The Unwaged', Art League Houston, 2018; 'Labor Standards', Portland Art Museum, 2017. Recent group exhibition include: 'The Warmth of Other Suns: Stories of Global Displacement’, New Museum & Philips Collection, Washington D.C., 2019; 'Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly', The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, 2019; 'Becoming American', American and English Camps, Washington, 2018; 'On Whiteness', The Kitchen, New York, 2018; 'This is Not Here', RE21, New York, 2018; 'Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly', Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, 2018; 'I followed You to the Sun', Galerie Lisa Kandlhofer, Vienna, 2018; 'SP-Arte - Presented by Galerie Lisa Kandlhofer', SP-Arte, Sao Paulo, 2018; 'Disobedience', Jenkins Johnson, New York, 2018; 'New Feelings', Center for Contemporary Art, PNCA, Portland, 2018; 'Where Do We Stand?', The Drawing Center, New York, 2017; 'Marginalia', The Drawing Center, New York, 2017; 'To: Seattle | Subject: Personal', Frye Art Museum, Seattle, 2016; 'New Cities, Future Ruins', Jubilee Park and Community Center, Dallas, 2016; 'NW Art Now @ TAM 2016', Tacoma Art Museum, 2016.

Ree Kaneko founded the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in 1981. She served as Executive Director until early 2001. From 1980-84, Kaneko was the Founder and Director of Alternative Worksite, an Artist-in-Industry Program and the predecessor of the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. She received a BFA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and was honored with a Distinguished Alumna Award from her alma mater in 1991. Kaneko is also a founding board member of the Alliance of Artists Communites, an advocacy and service organization for artist residency programs throughout the nation.

Chris Cook is a Floridian, which kind of says a lot. Before the siren’s song of the Missouri River swept him to Omaha in 2015, he was the Executive Director of Cannonball, a nonprofit arts space in Miami. At Bemis, he works with a dedicated staff and Board of Directors as the Executive Director, establishing the vision and overarching direction of the organization in order for it to serve artists and impact Omaha’s diverse communities. He’s held leadership positions at the Salina Art Center (Kansas), Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (Missouri), and Sioux City Art Center (Iowa), and has organized over 60 exhibitions during his 18-year career in the arts. Chris’s two boys and Doberman, Dahlia, keep him on his toes outside of his work at Bemis. They love to camp, hike, bicycle, listen to records, and explore the countryside on spontaneous road trips.