After 15 months on the job, Germaine Williams resigned Wednesday as executive director of Pittsburgh Filmmakers/Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, a local arts group that has had three leaders in the past four years.
Mr. Williams’ resignation is effective immediately. He did not respond to a request for comment.
The organization’s 13-member board has named Dan Demicill, a 73-year-old retail executive from Delray Beach, Fla., as interim executive director. Mr. Demicill was introduced to staff members at a meeting Wednesday afternoon.
Charlee Brodsky, secretary of the nonprofit’s board, said PF/PCA’s board will start a search for a permanent executive director.
Mr. Demicell, she said, is “very much a team builder. He listens extremely well. Everyone’s opinion matters to him,” Ms. Brodsky said. Mr. Demicell will be in the PF/PCA offices Monday through Thursday and work from his Florida home on Fridays, Ms. Brodsky said.
Before he took over at PF/PCA in January 2017, Mr. Williams, 44, of East Liberty, was a program officer for arts and culture at the Pittsburgh Foundation.
In May, Mr. Williams stunned employees and longtime supporters of PF/PCA when he announced that the organization had canceled fall classes in film and photography and would sell its Oakland building at 477 Melwood Ave. Mr. Williams said the nonprofit would move all of its classes to the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, a Shadyside campus at 6300 Fifth Ave. Summer classes, however, are being taught at the Center for the Arts.
The Melwood Avenue building, which includes a theater and a parking lot, was purchased for $1.2 million in 1998. Colliers International is marketing the property and there are several interested buyers. The asking price is $3.75 million.
During Mr. Williams’ tenure, the Regent Theater closed when a projector failed and did not reopen until October. Dollar Bank, a longtime sponsor of the nonprofit’s annual film festival, withdrew its sponsorship in 2017.
Starting in 2012, Mr. Demicell was general manager of Tru-Bamboo, a Florida-based kitchen supply company that sold bamboo cutting boards. Tru-Bamboo declared bankruptcy in 2013 and a telephone number for the company in Boynton Beach is disconnected.
From April 2001 through 2004, Mr. Demicell was president and chief executive officer of Lady/Kids Foot Locker USA. From 1989 to 1998, he was a senior vice president with Dillard’s department store. During the mid-1980s, Mr. Demicell worked in Pittsburgh’s Gimbels department store where he was a senior vice president and general merchandise manager.
Marylynne PItz at mpitz@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1648 or on Twitter:@mpitzpg
First Published: July 18, 2018, 9:26 p.m.
