The Grand Wayne Convention Center has tapped the Dayton Convention Center’s director as its new operations director.
Barton Shaw will replace Gary Wasson, who retired in December after working 26 years as operations director. He had been there since the Grand Wayne Center opened in 1985.
Shaw will begin Oct. 22 and will be responsible for daily operations and a staff of 21 full-time and 100 part-time employees.
Shaw currently works as the director and operations manager of the Dayton Convention Center, as well as director of the Dayton Airport Expo Center. He was hired to manage Dayton’s municipal convention centers in 2004. Before that he was director of operations at the SMG Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa and also managed a 16,000-seat arena in Cincinnati.
Shaw said is pleased to be moving to a center so well-equipped to compete for convention business.
“The Grand Wayne is an impressive facility,” he said in a written statement. “Fort Wayne has done a great job bringing together the assets that meeting planners value most when selecting a site for their convention. My family is happy to be staying in the Midwest, and I’m pleased to be joining a successful team with an impressive number of meetings and conventions already booked into the near future.”
The Grand Wayne Center operates on a budget of about $5 million a year and is overseen by the seven-member Capital Improvement Board, which also directs the disbursement of the Allen County supplemental food and beverage tax.
According to the Grand Wayne Center’s budget, a salary range of $64,000 to $100,000 is designated for the operations director’s salary, Allen County Auditor Tera Klutz said.
