Reel Grrls Staff

Robin Held

Executive Director

The Executive Director guides the vision and strategic growth of Reel Grrls, manages the professional staff, and leads development and fundraising activities in collaboration with the board and staff. She directs financial and development operations. She plays a critical role in shaping and maintaining the culture and identity of the organization and leads the effort to build and maintain strong relationships between Reel Grrls, its regional, national and international partners.

Before coming to Reel Grrls, Robin served as Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Collections at the Frye Art Museum, 2004-2012, where she was a key player in its institutional renovation and its reputation for innovative contemporary art exhibitions. This transformation included a successful petition to the State of Washington for a reinterpretation of the Museum founder’s will, an important legal decision that had an immediate positive impact on the Frye. Exhibitions Held curated for the Frye include The RetroFuturistic Universe of NSK, Heaven is Being a Memory for Others (Dario Robleto), Empire, Degenerate Art Ensemble’s Red Shoes, and Implied Violence: Yes and More and Yes and Yes and Why.

As Associate Curator at the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, 1999-2004, Held curated such nationally recognized exhibitions as Hershmanlandia: The Art and Film of Lynn Hershman Leeson and Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics—both of which received extensive editorial coverage in the New York Times. The latter was the first art museum exhibition to be registered with the National Institutes of Health, providing a new museum model for the safe exhibition of life forms created by artists.

Held earned her PhD, ABD, in Art History at the University of Washington, where her studies focused on contemporary art and critical theory in new media, feminist philosophy, and theories of embodiment. She earned her BFA, New Genres, from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has published and lectured extensively on contemporary art, performance, and experimental media. In 2009, she was a Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellow. She has also received a Goethe Institute Visiting Scholar Travel Award (2009), a Stranger Genius Award (2005) and a Getty Grant Program Curatorial Research Fellowship (2003).

Among the women who inspire Robin are Yoko Ono, Trinh Minh-Ha, Vivienne Westwood, and Haruko Nishimura.

Betsey Brock
Director of External relations

As Director of External Relations, Betsey Brock oversees communications, marketing, individual giving, and special events for Reel Grrls. She supports existing programs offered by Reel Grrls, while forging community partnerships and providing points of connection and collaboration with other organizations, foundations, and special interest groups.  

Before coming to Reel Grrls, Betsey served as Associate Director of Communications and Outreach at the Henry Art Gallery. She formed and served as staff liaison for SHAG (the Student Henry Advisory Group), participated in the creation of its Student Technology Lounge, organized special events, and worked to build community around the museum’s exhibitions and programs. She also launched and sustained the Henry’s various social media platforms, its blog and podcast series, and oversaw the 2006 re-launch of the Henry’s website, expanding the site to showcase the variety of current offerings, while bringing to light the museum’s 85-year exhibition history. Betsey also served on the Board of Trustees for Northwest Film Forum from 2003-2009. Betsey brings to Reel Grrls an open mind and a love for building community around a cause. Women who inspire Betsey include Amy Pohler, Andrea Fraser, Eileen Myles, and Seattle arts leader Anne Focke.

 Maile Martinez 

Program Manager

Maile Martinez is the Program Manager at Reel Grrls. She leads the team that plans, designs, and provides all classes, workshops, and camps for Reel Grrls youth participants. She is a good person to contact if you have questions about upcoming classes, or how to get involved as a volunteer mentor. 

Maile studied Spanish, French, and English literature at Mount Holyoke College – the first college for women in the United States. She holds a Master's Degree in education from Arizona State University, and formerly taught middle school language arts as a Teach For America corps member. In 2005 she was awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to support the completion of her master's degree in European Literature at the University of Cambridge, St. John's College.  

Maile has produced, co-directed, and/or written four award-winning short films. Her latest project We Should Have Coffee Sometime was awarded the Women In Film Seattle Professional Grant in 2011. She is proud to serve on the board of Velocity Dance Center.  

Three inspirational women in Maile's life are her mother Emily who is a nurse and her two sisters Alana and Kela, an engineer, and an architect/artist. Maile also draws inspiration from Mary Lyon, Sophie Scholl, and Ava Duvernay

Ruth Keating-Lockwood

Program Coordinator

Ruth Keating Lockwood is a program coordinator at Reel Grrls, where she facilitates classes, designs programs and works with new and returning mentors. Ruth graduated from Bard College with a BA in Philosophy and from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School with a BS in Television, Radio and Film. Before moving to Seattle, Ruth lived in New York City, working as a video editor on national television commercials, museum installations and short films. 

In 2004 Ruth co-founded Brooklyn-based Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, a nonprofit music and mentoring organization serving girls and women, and she still serves on the Board of Directors as Vice President.  Ruth is also a member of the Board of Directors at Seattle's On The Boards.  Ruth is a drummer and drum instructor, and plays with bands in Seattle and New York.  

Three women Ruth is inspired by are: Evelyn Glennie, Mary Wollstonecraft and Judith Jamison.