Dufresne-Hale elected to the board; Vranas re-elected

WASHINGTON — NANA's 2026 member ballot has closed, with results announced by Board Secretary Benjamin Oduya. Colette Dufresne-Hale, Chief Financial Officer of the Alliance of Regional Arts Presenters, was elected to a first three-year term. Celeste Vranas, Vice President of Member Services at the Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, was re-elected to a second term.

Both directors will be seated January 1, 2027, under the three-year director terms set by the 2024 bylaws review. Directors may serve a maximum of two terms.

Their seating coincides with the departure of Gordon Ashcombe, Immediate Past Chair and CEO of the Society of Rural Hospital Administrators, who leaves the board the same day. Ashcombe chaired the board from 2024 to 2025 and has served as Immediate Past Chair since Margaret Oyelaran's election as chair in January 2026.

Dufresne-Hale, who will join the board for the first time, has been CFO of the Alliance of Regional Arts Presenters, an organization of 540 touring and presenting arts organizations, since before her election. Vranas, entering her second term, chairs the board's membership committee and is the board sponsor of the Heartland chapter petition filed by member organizations in the Kansas City area earlier this year.

The ballot closed the second Wednesday of September, as set in NANA's bylaws. New directors and re-elected directors are seated at the start of the calendar year following the vote.

Oduya, who as Secretary oversees the ballot process, said turnout and the two results together continue a pattern set by the 2024 bylaws review, which added a three-year director term and a formal past-chair seat. Under the current structure, directors may serve a maximum of two consecutive terms before rotating off, which is why Vranas's re-election required a fresh vote rather than an automatic renewal.

Ashcombe's departure closes out a board tenure that began well before his two years as chair. He led the Society of Rural Hospital Administrators throughout his time on NANA's board and chaired the board through the vote that moved the Annual Leadership Summit from June to December, a change that takes effect with the 2027 Summit. Oduya said the board expects to formally thank Ashcombe for his service at the January 2027 board meeting, the same meeting at which Dufresne-Hale will attend her first session as a seated director.

Vranas said her second term will focus on two items already before the board: continuing to sponsor the Heartland chapter petition through its planned June 2027 vote, and the membership committee's ongoing review of renewal benchmarks across NANA's six chapters.

Dufresne-Hale said she ran for the board in part because of her own federation's experience presenting and touring across state lines, which she said gives her a perspective on cross-border regulatory questions that the current board doesn't have from any single seat. She will be formally seated alongside the class of directors whose three-year terms begin January 1, 2027, and will serve through 2029, with the option to stand for a second term after that.

Oduya said member turnout for the 2026 ballot was consistent with prior cycles, and that the board continues to publish full ballot results, including vote counts, on request to any member organization in good standing. The next board election will follow the same September ballot-close, January-seating pattern established since the 2024 bylaws review.

The National Association of National Associations is the professional society for association executives, boards, and staff, representing more than 750 member organizations and 2 million professionals nationwide. Founded in 1998, NANA provides research, peer community, and advocacy for the people who run the organizations that hold civic life together.