Director: Steel Yard can be stronger economic presence

YARD WORK: Executive Director Helen Lang says that she wants to make the Steel Yard better known in hopes of bringing more people in to get training and helping get more funding. / COURTESY STEEL YARD
YARD WORK: Executive Director Helen Lang says that she wants to make the Steel Yard better known in hopes of bringing more people in to get training and helping get more funding. / COURTESY STEEL YARD

The Steel Yard in Providence is a unique combination of arts and technical training in welding, blacksmithing, jewelry and ceramics. Its new executive director, Helen Lang, stepped into the position in April, equipped with training in film and theater and extensive hands-on administrative and financial experience with nonprofits, as well as in the corporate world. As Lang puts down roots in Rhode Island and gets deeper into leading the Steel Yard, she’s sharing her vision on how to raise the Steel Yard’s community profile and maximize its potential as a catalyst for economic growth.

PBN: How did you come to be acquainted with the Steel Yard and interested in the position of executive director?
LANG: My daughter received a scholarship to the Lincoln School, so I started looking for work in this area because I wanted to move my family here. This job came to my attention when someone forwarded it to me. As soon as I noticed the job, it was love at first sight.

PBN: What was attractive to you about this job?
LANG: The combination of creating economic opportunity and the arts. I have a long career working in the nonprofit sector and I feel many organizations are overly dependent on contributed and foundation income. The Steel Yard has a good stream of earned income. And I like very much the way they present themselves. They want to reconnect people with the way things are made.

PBN: How do you plan to make sure the Steel Yard rises above the competition for financial support?
LANG: One of the keys is to look nationally to bigger foundations, like the Ford Foundation. In fact, right now we are one of five finalists for the Rudy Bruner Award. It’s a national award for excellence in terms of taking a site and converting it to another use. We took what was formerly a brownfield – formerly a steel yard – and remediated it and converted it to full use.

PBN: A lot of your experience is in administration and finance for arts organizations. Do you think your experience in finance will be critical as you lead the Steel Yard?
LANG: I think the key is the financial experience, the sensitivity to the arts and a lot of experience in nonprofits. I’m accustomed to thinking of how to make the most of something while remaining true to a nonprofit mission. As a financial person, I look at things differently.

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PBN: The Steel Yard is a unique combination of art and technical training. How does that combination add up, as far as getting people jobs and starting businesses?
LANG: For example, we have a “Weld to Work” program where we train young adults who may be considered at-risk. “Weld to Work” has a 93 percent retention rate. It’s a very individualized approach. We train through artistic means. We have artists working with them, teaching them how to weld. They’re creating projects, not just welding pieces of metal to learn how to do it. Everyone makes their own bike rack. I think that’s a good example of marrying the arts and technical training. … We get a lot of requests for projects we don’t want to take on, because we don’t do projects in an individual’s home or that aren’t accessible to the public. We’ll do a bench outside a coffee shop, but we won’t do a bench inside the home of the owner of the coffee shop. We refer those projects to artists and that generates more economic activity.

PBN: What kinds of jobs are are available for people who get experience at the Steel Yard?
LANG: Somebody who started out here taking our welding courses, for example, is now working at a shipyard. With “Weld to Work” we train people to do something useful and we instill pride in making something. In addition to that, it teaches them what it means to have a job, to show up, to be there every day and work. That’s a very valuable lesson, even if they don’t continue as welders. They have a real-life work experience.

PBN: How do you see the Steel Yard having an impact on the state economy?
LANG: One impact we have is with our Public Projects. We bid on the project, so it’s a competitive process. Sometimes it’s businesses, sometimes it’s neighborhood associations. The work is done here in the Steel Yard by artists that have an association with us and we usually use some “Weld to Work” graduates on those projects. Last year, we had $260,000 in revenue from our Public Projects. It’s a lot of revenue that could be going somewhere else or into neighboring states.

PBN: What’s your vision for the Steel Yard?
LANG: I didn’t come here to do everything exactly the way it’s been done, although it’s been done very well. A lot of the energy up to this point has been in remediation of the site and that was successfully accomplished. We’re coming up our 10th anniversary and I’m working with the board on a strategic plan. One of my goals is to make the Steel Yard better known. That could bring more people here to get training and help get more funding. I want to make the Steel Yard a strong economic presence in the community. •

INTERVIEW
Helen Lang
POSITION: Executive director of the Steel Yard
BACKGROUND: Lang has held numerous-high-profile positions in the New York arts community. She was finance director at the Tribeca Film Institute and finance manager of the Trisha Brown Dance Company. She held key administrative positions at the Legal Aid Society, Children’s Rights and the Astraea Foundation for Social Justice. Lang spent two years in western Massachusetts as executive director of the Cummington Community for the Arts. In the corporate world, she worked at Pepsico, the parent company of Pepsi and other food and beverage products.
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree from Vassar College, 1977; Master of Fine Arts from New York University, 1980; MBA from Columbia University, 1983
FIRST JOB: Working at her stepfather’s electrical-contracting company
RESIDENCE: Providence
AGE: 57

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