The Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Community Center of Utah has its second new executive director in three months in what continues to be a year of transition for the community resource organization.
Valarie Larabee started this week as executive director. She was hired after Chad Beyer, who took the position in August, resigned.
Larabee, who has lived in Utah since 1997, is leaving her positions as a financial planner at American Express and as director of Mark Eaton's foundation, Standing Tall for Youth, to head the center.
"The main objective of my being here is to increase the opportunities for people in our community," Larabee said. "Specifically for the center, to make it a vibrant and embracing place."
The GLBT center, established in 1991, provides a meeting place, youth activity center, library and coffee shop. It also sponsors the annual Utah Pride celebration.
Charles Milne, an at-large board member, said Larabee will help bring community involvement back into the "struggling" GLBT Center.
"She will be bringing with her many talents and skills that we are seeking to build bridges with the community," Milne said in a statement.
Maryann Martindale, center board chairwoman, said the community center is going through transition, but it's nothing outside of the ordinary.
In April, the GLBT Center's former executive director, Paula Wolfe, resigned after 4 1/2 years at the post. At the time, Wolfe said she stepped down, in part, to spend time with her children in Seattle.
Then, the Utah Department of Health cut funding for an anti-smoking campaign sponsored by the GLBT Center.
Martindale said Larabee is a strong fund-raiser and had been a top candidate when the board hired Beyer, who "ended up not being a good fit."
She said the loss of the tobacco funding hurt, but it's also an opportunity to refocus the GLBT Center's mission.
"It doesn't seem internally as much an upheaval as may be perceived," she said. "I think it would be a mistake to look at the center and say it was totally broken, now we're fixing it."
Martindale said the GLBT Center is retaining its strong programs, eliminating those that aren't strong or that duplicate others, and is adding some new programs and upgrading its technology.
"We have a very strong youth program that will continue," she said. "We're going to try and focus on some of those adult coming-out programs, education, awareness and resource referrals."
E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com