Board

Tina Kotrych

Co-President

Tina Kotrych joined Firebird Community Arts' executive board in 2017 and serves on the board development and fundraising committees and is now Co-President. Since 2010 Tina has worked as the Trade Commissioner for Foreign Direct Investment at the Consulate General of Canada in Chicago where she creatively leverages broad networks on both sides of the border to help Midwest-based start-up, SME, and multinational clients representing a wide array of industries navigate all aspects of setting up operations in Canada. Tina also has a keen sense of policy analysis and uses this in her advocacy role at the Consulate promoting policy priorities for the Government of Canada.

Prior to joining the Consulate Tina served as the first Development Director at Chicago Women's Health Center and on two campaigns for the United Way of Metro Chicago. In 2005 Tina came to Chicago as a member of AmeriCorps and worked at KIPP: Ascend Charter School in the Austin / Lawndale neighborhood. From 2013-16 Tina served as the Board Chair of the Awakenings Foundation and Gallery in Chicago's Ravenwood neighborhood. In 2013 Tina became a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) alumnus after a five-week term testing her physical and mental limits while gaining more than 30,000 vertical feet over 130 miles backpacking in India's Himalayan mountain range. For nearly a decade she has been a fixture at Lillstreet Art Center as a perpetual ceramics student.  Born and raised in southeastern Michigan, Tina holds a BS from Eastern Michigan University.