Elizabeth B. Jacks has been the Executive Director of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site since 2003. During her tenure, she expanded the campus from one building to six; increased the number of staff from one to twenty-four; and grew the organization’s operating budget and visitation by tenfold. Major projects include restoring Cole’s 1839 Old Studio, reconstructing Cole’s 1846 New Studio, restoring the Main House interiors, creating award-winning audiovisual story-telling installations, organizing major traveling exhibitions, publishing over 30 books, mapping a hiking trail to the places that Cole painted, and opening the historic site’s new all-season visitor center building: the Cole Center. Previously, she was Director of Marketing for the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Prior to that, Ms. Jacks was an Associate with the management consulting firm, Booz-Allen & Hamilton. She has a degree in Studio Art and Art History from Duke University, Cum Laude, and an MBA in Marketing from the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University. She is currently the Vice-Chairman of the Hudson River Valley Greenway Conservancy and serves on the Museum Regents Advisory Council for New York State. She is also a practicing artist and has exhibited her paintings in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley. She lives in Chatham, New York, with her husband and two daughters.