Community Rowing, Inc. (CRI), the growing nonprofit organization on the Charles River that promotes rowing as means of fitness and recreation for all, said today it has appointed Ellen Minzner -- a World Champion Rower with an extensive coaching background and an emphasis on the role of youth sports and community development -- as its new Director of Outreach.
As Director of Outreach, Ms. Minzner will oversee a broad range of programs run for hundreds of competitive and recreational rowers at Community Rowing, and she will fill one of the organizations top executive positions.
Ms. Minzner recently completed a Master's Degree program at Tufts University focusing on youth sports and their role in community development.
"We at CRI are very excited to welcome back Ellen, one of the originators of rowing-based youth development," said Bruce Harold Smith, Executive Director of Community Rowing, Inc. "Our goal is to expand the boundaries of what people believe rowing can accomplish, and with Ellen's leadership we are looking to period of tremendous growth for our programs."
Ms. Minzner will supervise programs including Adaptive Rowing, G-Row for young women, U.S. Military Veterans Rowing, a new Boys Row program that begins early this year, and Community Rowing's big annual celebration and outreach effort, the Rumble on the River. Ms. Minzner will replace Rachele Pojednic, who had been in the position one year and is now concentrating on completing her Ph.D. in exercise physiology at Tufts University.
The new Director of Outreach will join Executive Director Smith and the rest of the staff in promoting its three major objectives that have been identified for 2011. Those are continuing to expand accessibility of rowing in the Greater Boston community, delivering increasingly high-quality programs, and improving the experience of CRI rowers both on and off the water.
Ms. Minzner previously coached at Community Rowing and is returning after completing her Master's Degree in Urban Planning last fall at Tufts University. There she wrote a thesis on the role of youth sports in community development.
Ms. Minzner's name is prominent in the rowing world. She joined Boston Rowing Center to begin an impressive rowing career that included five years on the U.S. National Team from 1991 to 1996 and back-to-back world titles in 1995 and 1996.
She remained involved in coaching while training with the U.S. squad, coaching Wellesley College in the spring of 1991 and the Winsor School from 1991 to 1996, where she was named a Women's Sports Foundation Coach of the Year.
Ms. Minzner took up collegiate coaching after retiring from competition, first at Kansas State University, in Manhattan, KS, and then at the University of California at Berkeley. She returned to Boston to head up Community Rowing's G-Row Boston program from 2002 to 2006, while also coaching the CRI competitive women's team.
Ms. Minzner worked for two years as the manager of the Community Development Department for the City of Lawrence, MA. She then took over as Executive Director of Greater Lawrence Community Boating in 2009, where she led the expansion of programming from summer-only to year-round operations.
She also created a successful program under which Lawrence youth became rowing coaches and now lead middle-school youth participating in rowing-fitness programs. Ms. Minzner will continue to play an advisory role in the rowing programs in Lawrence.
"I am thrilled to be able to put into practice the theory that positive sport experiences empower communities as well as individuals," said Ms. Minzner. "CRI is operating at a scale and capacity to do just that through its inner city, adaptive, and military veterans rowing programs".