Category: Q&A

Meet the Capitol Center’s new executive director

The Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord will welcome its new executive director, Salvatore Prizio, on Monday, Nov. 29. Prizio talked about what he brings to the position and his short- and long-term goals for the performing arts venue.

What is your background in this kind of work?

I went to Northeastern University as a music industry major. I spent the better part of 10 years in New York City, working in the record business and touring and playing with my own bands. Then I moved to upstate New York with my wife and we opened a place called Bread and Jam, a 100- to 150-person coffee house where we had live music four nights a week. I had that for about two years, but it was during the Great Recession and business wasn’t as good as I hoped. … I went to [work at] the College of Saint Rose for about six years, running the Massry Center for the Arts, a 400-seat recital hall and performing arts center venue. I loved it there, and we did fantastic things with that space, but I couldn’t grow anymore. I started … doing programming for Proctor’s Collaborative, which has venues all over the Capital Region [of the U.S.] and a contract with Rivers Casino, booking their talent. … I was also able to expand my skills and do some work on the logistical side of things, like getting venues up and running, doing support work for the board, supporting fundraising teams, that sort of stuff. After five years there, I really wanted to take the next step to become an executive director. When the search firm [informed] me about the opportunity at the Capitol Center, I thought it was the right-sized organization and right time for me to step into that role.

What will your job entail?

At an organization of this size, the executive director does a bit of everything. I’ll be working with our programming person to make sure our programming is meeting our goals and objectives from a mission standpoint, while also making sure we’re being fiscally responsible. I’ll oversee budgets; implement or make changes to the strategic plan that’s in place; work with the board on a daily basis; check in with our ops team and make sure we have proper staffing.

What do you expect to be some of the biggest challenges?

One of the major issues CCA and all performing arts centers are facing now is getting back on their feet [financially]. They have a lot of fiscal issues from being shut down for months. … How do you balance expanding [programming] … while making sure you’re not being irresponsible from a budgetary standpoint? … The other piece of that is, like most businesses, the Capitol Center had to lay off a lot of staff, and now getting qualified staff back is a huge challenge. … Then, there’s people’s reticence to get back [out]. We have to help alleviate that through safety measures, making sure people feel comfortable again. … Once I get to understand the organization more, I’m going to develop strategies for the best practices moving forward.

What are some of your immediate goals?

Coming from upstate New York to a city like Concord, there are going to be differences — not major differences, but nuances — so my first goal is to really understand those differences. Then there are some nuts-and-bolts things … like updating the website … and getting our staffing back up to where it needs to be.

What are some of your long-term goals?

Most people think of a performing arts center as a place with four walls, seats and a stage, where you go to experience art, whether it’s comedy, music, theater or whatever. What I really want to do is break down those barriers of what a typical performing arts center is … and start thinking about CCA as more of a presenter/promoter. If there are communities that can’t get into our space, whether it’s because of mobility issues or economic challenges or anything like that, we want to be able to present [programming for them] outside of our buildings — things like street fairs, block parties and festivals and [events] at their community centers. … While researching this position, I found out New Hampshire is home to many new Americans, so I’m excited to find out who those communities are and have conversations with them about what types of art would resonate best within their communities. … During the pandemic, many performing arts centers were able to pivot to digital media so they could still reach their patrons, and that’s going to be a long-term component of performing arts centers. I can see the Capitol Center having more multimedia-kind of presentations; that’s going to be critical for us down the road. It’s a way we can reach a wider audience and allow people who might not have the opportunity to get to our physical space, like some of the folks living in senior centers, for example, to experience art from the comfort of their own home.

What unique qualities or perspectives do you bring to this position?

I bring enthusiasm, openness, acceptance and a willingness to stretch the boundaries of what people think about art. Inclusiveness is a huge thing I want to emphasize; I want everyone to know there’s a seat for them here. In this world where everything has become so polarized, I feel art is something that can always bring us together. I take that responsibility very seriously, but with a sense of joy.

Featured photo: Salvatore Prizio. Courtesy photo.

NHDRA names new Taxpayer Services director

After nearly two decades at the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration serving in various roles, Lisa Crowley has stepped into a new position as the director of the Taxpayer Services Division. Crowley offered a look at what the division does and what it’s like to work a job that is “no one’s favorite topic.”

What is the function of the Taxpayer Services Division?

The Taxpayer Services Division is the largest division in the Department of Revenue. Essentially, we’re very much customer service-based. We hold the DRA [Department of Revenue Administration] call center. All of the mail and the money that comes into the department comes right to us, so we process and scan everything in. We also have a Tax Account Reconciliation Group; if there are any issues or errors that come up with the processing that we can identify right off, the Tax Account Reconciliation Group takes care of those so when the other divisions have to use … that information in our system, hopefully most of the bugs are worked out and they can just do their job. We also update our forms … and make any changes that need to be made on the website. Most recently, we’ve been overseeing the production support phase of our most recent system upgrades.

What does your job as director entail?

I oversee essentially everything in this division. … I do whatever I can to support my employees. I manage staffing, making sure we have the right amount of staffing to get our jobs done. … I make sure we’re processing our returns on time and getting the money in the bank on time. I just support the group in whatever way I can, even if that means opening mail during our busy times. That’s part of the job as well — managing from an upper perspective as well as diving in to do the little deeds our current staff may not have time to do.

What is your background in this work?

I’ve been with the department for about 19 years. This was my second job out of college. … I was hired as a tax forms examiner … starting in the Document Processing Division, which is now the Taxpayer Services Division. From there I became a supervisor in the Document Processing Division, worked in an audit group for a little while, and worked in our Municipal and Property Group. Then … I became our hearings manager, managing the department’s appeals. About three and a half years ago I was asked to be the director of our legacy system upgrade project, where we took our 30-year-old tax information management system and upgraded it into new software. It was quite an undertaking. Now that that project is done, I was asked to take over as the director of Taxpayer Services. … I think it’s a natural progression for me to come into this position.

What are some of the biggest challenges for the division right now?

There are a lot of challenges with getting used to this new world we operate in, especially [due to] Covid. … One is the new [software] system. … It comes with a learning curve. We’ve automated a lot of things, which means more mailings need to go out. … We’re also assisting GOFERR, the Governor’s Office for Emergency Relief and Recovery, with some of their programs. … There’s a lot coming at us, and we’re a very small department of a little less than 150 people … so everyone is working very hard right now to [adjust to] all these changes and overcome these challenges we’ve been faced with.

What do you hope to accomplish as director?

The employees in this division work really hard and do such a great job. … One of my goals … is to make sure they understand the great work they do, and to reward them as much as I possibly can. … Another thing I want to do is support our employees … with our new software. Some of our employees have been here for 10- or 20-plus years, so going into new technology is difficult. I want to make sure they know it’s OK if they aren’t as quick with the new system as they were [with the old one]. We’re all learning this together, and we’ll just keep plugging away until we get there.

What do you enjoy about your work?

It’s funny — when you say you work in taxes, a lot of people are like, ‘Oof,’ and, admittedly, tax isn’t the most exciting thing to work in every day. What I love about the department is the people; we’re a family here, and we support each other. We all understand that maybe tax isn’t the most exciting area to work in, but it’s necessary. … Even though we’re looking at numbers and returns all day and sometimes dealing with unhappy taxpayers, we make the best of it and find ways to make our days happy.

What do you wish people knew about the Taxpayer Services Division?

We [at the division] get it; we all pay taxes, too, and it’s no one’s favorite topic … but we care about our taxpayers. They aren’t just a number. … We want to help them as much as we possibly can. Of course, we have a job to do, and if there are bills that have to go out, unfortunately, [sending them] is part of that job … but I think [taxpayers] can at least come away with a positive feeling about [being] treated [well] and respected.

Featured photo: Lisa Crowley. Courtesy photo.