Senior Management

John S. Stanley, director of special projects, is serving as the interim director of the Toledo Museum of Art while an international search is conducted for a new Edward Drummond and Florence Scott Libbey Director.

Stanley began his career at TMA in 1979 and served as the chief operating officer and deputy/assistant director at TMA from 1987 to 1995 before joining the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he served as the chief operating officer (COO) and deputy director for programs and services. Most recently Stanley served as the COO for the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

During Stanley’s career, he has been responsible for the successful completion of dozens of new construction and renovation building projects including working with three Pritzker Prize winning architects: Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, and Renzo Piano. Project leadership has included the successful acquisition of required public and agency approvals. Among his responsibilities while at the Whitney was overseeing the construction of its new Renzo Piano-designed building in downtown Manhattan.

He currently oversees TMA’s campus Master Site Plan from design through construction, including project planning, budget development, community engagement and funding strategies.

A graduate of the University of Toledo, Stanley earned his MBA from Bowling Green State University and attended the Museum Management Institute at the University of California at Berkeley.

Kristina Crystal graduated cum laude from Michigan State University with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. She was hired to fill a new position at the Museum, chief revenue officer, in 2018. In this role, Crystal is responsible for driving revenue growth by leveraging all revenue-generating departments, including marketing, visitor engagement, retail, and development. Crystal joined TMA from Deluxe Entertainment Services, a $1 billion media entertainment business based in Burbank, California, where she served as chief administrative officer of Deluxe and chief operating officer of the creative services division. Crystal is adept at defining and implementing integrated business strategies to deliver profitable growth and identifying strengths within her team. Crystal’s passion is leadership development and finding and cultivating the strengths in her teams to maximize output and deliver sustainable results. She is a Temperance, Michigan native.

Todd Ahrens was named director of development in October 2013. He has extensive experience in arts and educational fundraising, marketing and finance, and has held senior-level development positions at the University of Findlay, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and St. John’s Jesuit High School and Academy. He was previously a staff member at the Toledo Museum of Art from 1997 to 2005, having held a variety of positions in the development department, including associate director of development and interim director of development. He began his nonprofit career with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Ahrens received his M.A. in German from Bowling Green State University and his B.A. in international business and German from Simpson College. He has served on boards for several organizations, including the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo, Black Swamp Arts Festival, Ohio Museums Association, and Toledo Area Partnership for Philanthropic Planning.

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Lauren Applebaum joined the Toledo Museum of Art in 2018 as a TMA leadership fellow. She brings over a decade of museum and art world experience to this position, which aims to cultivate membership of the next generation of museum leaders by providing direct experience in strategic planning, curatorial and program leadership, board engagement, donor stewardship, financial and resource management, policy development, and community engagement. Prior to accepting this position, Applebaum was the GSK curatorial fellow in American art at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh (NCMA), where she participated in significant museum exhibitions, acquisitions, and collection building projects.

Applebaum received her B.A. from the University of Colorado at Boulder, her M.A. in art history at Hunter College, CUNY, and her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her doctoral research on the intersection between art and social technologies in the nineteenth century was supported by fellowships at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Huntington Library (Calif.), the Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In addition to her academic and museum fellowship positions, she also worked in New York City, both in art advisory and gallery roles, and in the executive office at Christie’s.  

Mike Deetsch joined the Toledo Museum of Art staff in 2013 as assistant director of education. He was recently named the Emma Leah Bippus director of education and engagement, overseeing the docent program, art classes, and museum curriculum. Prior to joining the staff at TMA, Deetsch served as a senior museum educator at the Brooklyn Museum, the exhibition and programs director at the Lexington Art League, and the student programs manager at the Kentucky Historical Society. In 2012 he was selected to participate in the Getty Leadership Institute’s NextGen program. Deetsch received his M.S. in Art Education from the Pratt Institute and a B.A. in Art History from Hanover College.

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Stephanie Elton received her B.A. in communication from Bluffton University. As director of communications at TMA, a role she was promoted to in 2018, Elton oversees the Museum’s comprehensive marketing, advertising, public relations, and branding strategy, with a strong focus on digital media tactics. She joined the Museum in 2013 as the social media and digital communications manager and became the marketing communications manager in 2017. Prior to her tenure at TMA, Elton worked for HART, a full-service digital marketing, advertising, and public relations firm based in Toledo, Ohio; Touch and Go Records, an independent record label and music distribution company previously based in Chicago, Illinois; and Lumberjack Mordam Music Group, a music distribution company formally based in Toledo, Ohio. She serves on the Board of Governors for the American Advertising Federation-Toledo chapter and volunteers with Girls on the Run of Northwest Ohio.

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Andrea Gardner received her B.A. in classics from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and her M.A. in ancient art history from the University of Texas at Austin. In her role as director of collections at TMA, which she assumed in 2018, Gardner leads the logistical support operations of the care and display of the Museum’s collections. Her primary responsibilities include management of the exhibitions, conservation and registration departments; oversight of the risk management initiatives for the Museum’s collections; and increasing efficiency and implementing improved processes in the collections areas. Prior to her new position, Gardner was the registrar and assistant systems officer at TMA, where she has worked, beginning as an intern in the curatorial and registration departments, since 2006.

James Meador received his B.A. in public safety management from Cleveland State University, and his M.S. in criminal justice with a specialization in behavior analysis from Saint Joseph’s University. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in performance psychology from Grand Canyon University. Meador was hired as the Museum’s director of protective services in 2017 and is responsible for the safety and security of TMA’s guests, staff, and assets. Meador has more than 18 years of criminal justice experience, which includes law enforcement leadership and management, law enforcement training, security management operations, SWAT, emergency response planning and execution, with special skills in vulnerability assessment and applied behavior analysis. Prior to joining the Museum, Meador was chief of police for Northwest Ohio Psychiatric Hospital. He previously worked as a law enforcement training officer for the Ohio Attorney General’s office, and he has many years of experience as a state law enforcement officer in the Cleveland area. He is a U.S. Army Military Police combat veteran. Meador is from the Mansfield, Ohio area.

Jim Mohler graduated magna cum laude from the University of Toledo with a B.S. in Information Technology. He joined the Toledo Museum of Art as the Information Technology Manager in 2018. In this role, Jim is responsible for all information technology operations, setting technology strategy and initiatives across a broad set of platforms and identifying opportunities to enhance efficiency and communication using technology. After a distinguished information technology management career in the United States Air Force where he provided technical support for a variety of systems and applications, he continued to use those skills to lead information technology departments at several Toledo-area companies and nonprofits.

Lawrence W. Nichols is William Hutton senior curator of European and American painting and sculpture before 1900. He joined TMA in 1992 after being associate curator of the John G. Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A specialist in northern Baroque painting, his book The Paintings of Hendrick Goltzius, 1558-1617, A Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné was published in March 2012.  He took his Ph.D. from Columbia University and received his B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Nichols has curated major exhibitions at the TMA including “Frans Hals Portraits, A Family Reunion”, “Manet: Portraying Life”, “Van Gogh: Fields”, and “Hendrick Goltzius, Dutch Master: Drawings, Prints, and Paintings”.  He has been responsible for a number of important acquisitions including works by Hals, Guercino, Chardin, and Delacroix. He is the curatorial liaison to The Georgia Welles Apollo Society, TMA’s art acquisition group.

Nichols serves on the old master paintings vetting committee of The European Fine Arts Fairs in both Maastricht and New York, and chairs the International Indemnity Program Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts.  In addition, he serves on the Art Advisory Committee of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.  He was the Paul Mellon Visiting Senior Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, in 2017, and a visiting scholar at the Getty Research Institute in 2010 and at the Clark Art Institute in 1999.

Contact Larry Nichols

Patricia O’Toole received her B.A. in accounting from Miami University in Oxford, and her MBA from the University of Cincinnati. In her role as director of finance, O’Toole oversees the financial operations and investments of the Museum. Prior to joining the Museum in 2017, O’Toole served as the director of operations at Hospice of Northwest Ohio and the director of finance at Maumee Valley Country Day School, where she helped gain significant improvement in financial performance. Among O’Toole’s additional previous experience have been financial and administrative responsibilities on behalf of CBT Credit Services, Cincinnati Bell Telephone, and Deloitte and Touche. O’Toole is a Toledo native.

Kathryn Robinson received her B.A. in employee relations and M.A. in human resources and labor relations from Michigan State University. She also holds her Senior Certified Professional (SCP) designation from the Society for Human Resources Management and her Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) designation from the Human Resource Certification Institute. Joining the Museum as the human resources business partner in 2016, Robinson is responsible for managing and directing the human resources function. She is a multi-disciplinary HR professional with experience in the manufacturing/technology, healthcare, and banking industries. Robinson re-located to the Toledo area with her family in 2015 and is a Michigan native. 

Diane C. Wright received a Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Utah and a Master of Arts in the history of decorative arts from Parsons School of Design at The New School in New York. Prior to joining TMA in 2017, Wright served as the Carolyn and Richard Barry Curator of Glass at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. She is a recognized scholar of the windows and mosaics of Louis Comfort Tiffany and his studio. In addition to serving as interim director of curatorial affairs, she is TMA’s senior curator of glass and decorative arts.

John Yaniglos was named director of facilities in May 2019. An experienced construction and facilities professional, he joined the Museum from Mosser Construction, Inc. where he served as the project manager for multiple projects, providing onsite and day-to-day operations oversight of renovation and industrial projects.

Prior to that, he served as the facility maintenance and safety coordinator for the Huntington Center Arena for three years.

Yaniglos has a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering technology from the University of Toledo.