John Wilkin, Chief Executive Officer
John comes to Lyrasis from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he served as Dean of Libraries and University Librarian, and brings deep experience in building community-driven programs with a focus on increasing access to knowledge, a core tenet of the Lyrasis mission. Wilkin played a key role in the creation of HathiTrust, a nonprofit collaborative digital library that preserves and provides access to 17+ million digitized items, serving as its first Executive Director. He has long been an advocate for open source and open access initiatives, developing pioneering digital library systems and spearheading open access to content such as Making of America. Wilkin was the recipient of the 2011 LITA/Library Hi Tech award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology and the 2019 Hugh Atkinson Memorial Award.
Laurie Arp, Senior Director
As a Senior Director, Laurie directs hosting services and the community supported open-source programs housed at Lyrasis including: ArchivesSpace, CollectionSpace, DSpace, Fedora and VIVO. Laurie is the Principal Investigator for the IMLS-funded “It Takes a Village” project, which provides sustainability planning resources for open source software projects serving cultural and scientific heritage. Previously, Laurie worked for OCLC and the Ohio Historical Society. She received her MLIS from UCLA; her MA in European History from UC Irvine; and her BA in History from UCSD.
Michael Atwood, Senior Director, Ebooks and Community Engagement
Michael Atwood is the Senior Director of the Ebooks and Community Engagement division. Prior to being acquired by Lyrasis in 2021, he was the Chief Technology Officer and equity partner at BiblioLabs where he played a critical role in the creation of the BiblioBoard platform, which provides tools connecting libraries with their local communities. With roles both as a leader and individual contributor, Michael has developed software solutions to solve complex problems for over 20 years. He has worked closely with authors, publishers and libraries for the last decade providing technical and strategic solutions to help them stand out in our increasingly competitive digital world. Michael holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science and B.S. in Computer Information Systems from the College of Charleston. He is also a member of the College of Charleston Computer Science Industry Advisory Board.
Celeste Feather, Senior Director, Content & Scholarly Communication Initiatives
Celeste Feather, Senior Director of Content and Scholarly Communication Initiatives, joined Lyrasis in 2010 with extensive experience in academic libraries and statewide consortial eresource licensing. She leads a team that works to innovate and transform models and approaches to scholarly publishing, based on collaboration with Lyrasis members and the wider GLAM community. The team’s strategic approaches focus on group negotiations for content licensing and acquisition, building communities of practice and support for open research services, and creating equitable and sustainable models for Open Access. Learn more at https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5907-7606.
Lisa Larson, Senior Director, Outreach & Engagement
Lisa Larson is the Senior Director of Outreach & Engagement and has worked with the library community for over 25 years. Lisa is dedicated and driven by her work with libraries, archives, and museums and how Lyrasis programs and services might bring them closer, through open technologies, services, and community engagement. The Outreach and Engagement teams are not only responsible for introducing the diverse array of services and programs to cultural heritage institutions, but also for bringing back critical news and feedback into Lyrasis, so that Lyrasis is a responsive and adaptive organization, focused on the now and the future. Lisa drives the Membership program, which is that the heart of every program or service we develop, adopt or partner around. The Outreach and Engagement teams under Lisa’s guidance stretch across the globe. It is through this local and regional engagement strategy that Lyrasis able to operate as a global organization, yet scale to engage locally and recognize regional opportunities and issues. Lisa’s particular passion is ensuring that smaller or less-resourced cultural heritage institutions have access to the same opportunities that come more readily to larger or better endowed institutions. Lisa graduated from Florida Atlantic University with a degree in Communications and has been accepted into the MLIS program at University of South Florida.
John McGarl, Treasurer
John McGarl has been with Lyrasis since 2009 and currently serves as Interim CFO. He leads an experienced Fiscal Dept. team made up of A/P, A/R, General Ledger and Payroll Specialists. John and his team provide back office functions not only for Lyrasis but also other institutions and associations. He and his capable staff can provide fiscal services including financial reporting, grant management, billing, collections, tax preparation and event registration management.
Prior to Lyrasis, John served in different Controllership and Treasurer positions in the Private Equity and Consumer Finance Industries. He holds a BA in Finance from the University of GA and is an active Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and Certified Treasury Professional (CTP). In his spare time he enjoys fishing and tennis.
Michelle Tiller, Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Michelle brings 18 years of nonprofit leadership experience to her role at Lyrasis, where she heads a strong Fiscal Department team and is the primary financial analyst, advisor, and spokesperson for the organization. She holds a BBA in Accounting from the University of Notre Dame, graduated from General Electric’s Financial Management Program, and is an active Certified Public Accountant (CPA).
Takeya McLaurin, Chief Human Resources Officer
Takeya McLaurin is currently the Chief Human Resources Officer at Lyrasis, a non-profit organization serving and supporting libraries, archives, museums, and cultural heritage organizations around the world. Prior to assuming this role, Takeya held a variety of HR leadership roles at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has also previously served as the Chief Human Resources Officer at the Richard Bland College of William & Mary. Takeya holds two professional HR certifications (SHRM-CP and PHR), a B.S. in Business Administration from Old Dominion University and an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology. In May of 2023, she obtained a Doctorate degree in Education from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Erin Tripp, Chief Operating OfficerErin (she/her/hers) is the Chief Operating Officer. Previously, she served as the Senior Director of Research and Innovation and the Director of the DuraSpace Community Supported Programs Division at Lyrasis. Before coming to Lyrasis, Erin served as the Executive Director of DuraSpace. She has experience leading teams through change, supporting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives, stewarding community-supported open source technologies, and developing and maturing new business models. Erin currently serves on the Board of Directors for Legs for Literacy, a charity that organizes running events to raise funds for literacy initiatives. Prior to working in the library, archives, and museum communities, Erin graduated from the University of King’s College (BJH), worked as a broadcast journalist with CTV Globemedia and graduated from the Dalhousie University School of Information Management (MLIS) where she won the Outstanding Service Award in 2011.
Raili Throndson, Senior Director, Information Technology Bio coming soon.