teal thibaud
director
Teal is one of the original founders of Glass House Collective and has been involved with almost every aspect of the organization’s activities over the past eight years. She believes in the power of creativity as a tool for transforming under-resourced communities and enjoys designing and implementing projects that strengthen communities, build capacity, and encourage sustained civic engagement. Teal oversees all strategic and operational responsibilities including managing GHC’s staff and programs while leading the expansion and execution of its mission.
Authentic placed-based work is challenging and dynamic. Teal uses her skills and passion for positive change to lead and work alongside individuals and organizations across multiple sectors. She shows up open, agile, and relentless. She believes resilience is learning to dance with life, to flex, adapt, and keep creating as life continually surprises us. As a community builder and innovator, Teal knows we all have the power to build and create using the resources around us. She is an activator, an Imagineer of The What’s Possible. There is no better way to help ensure that the collective voices, talents, and spirits of a place are raised than to invest in the people who live there. Teal wrangles the power of the arts in this context believing in its ability to change a community’s trajectory. When resident-led and arts-driven community change is at the center of placed-based work then the entire city has a chance at becoming more true to itself as a just, vibrant and authentic place. Teal’s background is in Marketing and Advertising and uses these skills to co-create narratives that shift perceptions and amplify the voices and people of the community. Teal has been a co-founder of other grass-roots initiatives around Chattanooga including The UNFoundation and The Nightingale Network. She’s been involved in a wide range of organizations supporting individual artists to outdoor focused charter schools. When she isn’t working, she enjoys traveling and spending time in our region’s great outdoors hiking, kayaking and camping with her daughter and friends.
“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
-Jane Jacobs
