Chilean artist Claudia Olivos, of Arlington, has been invited, along with four other Latin American artists from the metropolitan area, to show her paintings in a two-month exhibit in Mexico, beginning March 15. The artists will spend a week in Queretaro, the capital city of the state of Queretaro. The exhibition was organized by the Mexican Association of Visual Artists and the Regional Museum of Queretaro. The museum exhibit is part of a group of cultural events in the city promoted by the State Council of Arts and Culture seeking to investigate the artistic activities of Latin Americans abroad. The delegation of five artists will also present a seminar to students of the department of fine arts of the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro and will present a lecture at the museum on the day of the opening reception, based on dialogue pertaining to diaspora and the Latin American artist.
The seventh-grade English students of Beth Barnes, 1999 graduate of Yorktown High School, were featured in a recent airing of the Oprah Winfrey Show. Barnes now teaches at Harpers Ferry Middle School in West Virginia, where she assigned her students to write letters to Nate Berkus, a tsunami survivor, whom Barnes had seen on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Barkus wrote the class back and liked their letters so much that the show taped them reading their letters as a follow-up show.
Following a nationwide search, Arlington has named department veteran Terry Holzheimer director of Arlington Economic Development (AED). Holzheimer, 57, has headed AED's business investment group since 1996, focusing on business retention and recruitment and economic research. He also was responsible for Arlington's small business development efforts through AED's BizLaunch Center. Before coming to Arlington, Holzheimer served as Loudoun County's director of economic development from 1989-96. His career also includes heading a management consulting firm, Development Advisory Service Inc., which provided services to local governments throughout the country in housing and economic development. Earlier, he worked for the National League of Cities, consulting with city and county governments on redevelopment and rehabilitation programs.
Cannon Design, which has a regional center in Arlington, has announced that Paula P. Gillette, P.E., L.E.E.D., has joined the firm's mid-Atlantic operations as vice president and regional leader of the engineering department. Gillette is a mechanical engineer with more than 25 years' experience working on facility design projects throughout the United States and overseas. Prior to joining Cannon Design, Gillette provided engineering design for many prominent projects, including the Georgetown University Law School and Fitness Center; the expansion of Mary Washington Hospital; a new teaching lab building at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore; the Wake Forest University Outpatient Comprehensive Cancer Center; and the University of Maryland Comcast Arena. She is currently directing the engineering design for a new regional psychiatric hospital in North Carolina, as well as numerous housing and health-care projects in Washington, D.C., and is managing infrastructure replacement projects at the Breidenbach Environmental Research Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Patricia B. Carroll of Arlington, Project Manager for the National Association Workforce Board, was appointed to Virginia's Small Business Environmental Compliance Advisory Board by Gov. Mark Warner.
The Arlington County Sheriff's Office congratulates the most recent academy graduate additions to its staff. On Dec. 17, 13 deputy sheriffs graduated from the Northern Virginia Criminal Justice Training Academy's 111th session. The graduates were Christopher Angus, Mario Bryant, Grant Dean, Gregory Norman, William O'Neil, Jose Rivera, Dena Rogers, Matthew Sinkhorn, Christopher Snably, Tameka Starks, Michael Thomasson, Lynette Todd and Michelle Watson.
A special note goes to Deputy Michael Thomasson, who received the academic award for the highest score in the combined school.