Arts Council names new Executive Director

Long Beach, CA– The Arts Council for Long Beach announced the hiring of former Charter Communications executive, Craig Watson, as its new Executive Director. Watson will start his role immediately and join the Council’s staff in offices shared with the Economic Development and Cultural Affairs Bureau of the City of Long Beach.

“We are very pleased to have a leader as strong as Craig at this critical juncture in the further development of the arts in Long Beach,” stated Arts Council Board President, Justin Hectus. “He brings great energy and a deep commitment to our goal of more aggressively supporting arts and cultural activity wherever it occurs in Long Beach”.

The Arts Council is currently in the final stages of completing an update of the City-wide cultural plan in partnership with the City’s Economic Development and Cultural Affairs Bureau. Watson will help guide the completion of the plan, working closely with consultants hired with the assistance of a grant from the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. Under the banner of “Create Long Beach”, a citizens committee of 70 community leaders is overseeing the creation of the plan. A recent community forum and workshop was attended by over 200 local citizens, all helping to shape a vision for the arts in Long Beach. 

“I am joining the Arts Council at a seminal moment”, stated Watson. “The ‘Create Long Beach’ effort needs to be more than a compilation of great ideas…it needs to be a roadmap for action. Long Beach is already a great American city, but like all great cities, it must embrace and support a vibrant arts and culture scene if it is to compete for real civic distinction”.

The new cultural plan and an associated Economic Impact Study of the arts in Long Beach will be broadly shared with the community upon its completion sometime this summer. According to Robert Swayze, City of Long Beach Manager for Economic Development, “The new cultural plan we are co-sponsoring with the Arts Council can be a guide to civic engagement in the arts and help to drive the economic development that comes from a vibrant cultural scene. Craig’s arrival is great news for this overall initiative”.

The “Create Long Beach” plan is expected to be incorporated into the City’s Master Plan. The last City Master Plan to contain an arts and cultural component is over ten years old. 

Contact: Craig Watson, 562-570-1930 (office)

As Vice President for Communications at Charter’s Western Division headquarters in Long Beach, Watson oversaw all internal and external communications for a five-state area. 

During his tenure at Charter, Watson led the company to participate in several local and highly visible, community-based initiatives.  As a member of the 2005 class of Leadership Long Beach, he proposed and spearheaded the award-winning anti-gang programming marathon, “Enough is Enough”. He brought the company to title sponsorship of the Long Beach Sea Festival; helped develop the Charter Screening Room and Latino Film Series at the Museum of Latin American Art and sponsorship of large video screens and production at Long Beach Symphony POPS concerts; and among other things, provided ongoing support to Smithsonian Week, the Wide Angle events of the CSULB University Art Museum, sponsorship of the Charter All Digital Aquatic Centre (temporary stadium home of the Olympic Swim Trials) and ongoing video coverage of countless community festivals, parades and non-profit activities.  

A graduate of Occidental College with a degree in Fine Arts, Watson’s early business career was in arts management. He has served as the Assistant Director of the Sonoma County Arts Council; co-director of Santa Barbara Arts Services, a technical assistance organization for artists and arts groups; and as a consultant, developed the first, County-wide arts plan for Santa Barbara County. He completed a fellowship with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Coro Foundation’s Arts Management program. He has also served on many non-profit boards, including service as the founding Board President for the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. More recently Watson was a board member of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, the Long Beach Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and currently serves on the Pasadena Educational Foundation.