WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – The Williamstown Chamber of Commerce has named Emily Watts as its new executive director, Chairman Jason Dohaney announced on Friday.

 

Watts, who currently curates and produces artistic work throughout North County, succeeds Sandra Thomas beginning August 2015. 

 

“I moved to Williamstown just a couple of years ago and have fallen in love with this community. The Chamber has an important role in knitting together our values and our commerce, and I'm excited to a part of that,” Watts said.

 

For the past 15 years, Watts has brought organizational and operations expertise to a variety of cultural and economic development organizations.

 

As the program director for the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston, she helped design and curate the public programs of the Center, with a particular focus on creating the infrastructure for CounterCurrent, a new, five-day, multi-venue, interdisciplinary performing and visual arts festival.

 

A graduate of Wesleyan University, Watts is a founding Board member of Makers' Mill, the new North Adams Makerspace; FreshArts, a Houston-based arts service organization; and skybetter & associates, a Providence-based dance company dedicated to changing the way we make, disseminate, and discuss performance.

 

“It's an exciting time in Williamstown right now with record visitors at the Clark, excellent progress at Highland Woods and Cable Mills, and advances by the [Mount Greylock Regional] School Building Committee,” Dohaney said. “I'm eager to work with Emily and our business community to build on this progress.”