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Joan Cavanaugh has been a member of the FAD Board for five years and is currently on the Executive Board and the Director of the FAD Learning Center. Throughout her career she been a teacher, mentor, and counselor, motivating hundreds to seek and attain their greatest potential. Joan’s skill in teaching began upon graduation from the University of Illinois whereupon she taught elementary, secondary, and adult education classes for many years. However, while a candidate for a PhD at New York University, Joan was recruited by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City for their Publications Department. It is there that she was able to combine her knowledge and love of the arts with her commitment to education.
Joan created her own division for the department called Educational Marketing and produced the first audio walking tours for the museum public.. This ultimately led to Joan pioneering and creating the first retail space at the Metropolitan exclusively focused for children’s books, games, toys and graphics related to art in a Museum. The broad scale success of The Children’s Shop at the Metropolitan Museum became a model for the development of educational chain stores such as Learning Express, Noodle Kidoodle, Zany Brainy and innumerable children’s shops within museums throughout the country. Further, Joan created and published a mail order catalogue, Presents for Children from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which had a client base at that time in excess of two million. She converted her full-time position in the early 1980’s to a consultancy to enable her to found her own publishing company, WJ Fantasy, Inc., devoted to creating fine paper art products for children
As publisher, Joan developed hundreds of unique books, games and toys for domestic and international markets as well as creating and producing custom design products for UNICEF, the National Wildlife Federation, Readers Digest, and the White House, to name just a few. Her products received numerous awards.
Throughout her life and career, Joan has considered volunteer work and mentoring paramount. As a teacher, Joan gave unlimited time to student teachers for encouragement and guidance in the development of their profession. At the Museum Joan accepted at least two or three interns each year from colleges around the country who came to study publishing and marketing as a museum career. While heading up WJ Fantasy, Joan employed students from local universities and colleges who wanted to learn how to create and develop a successful business
Joan was awarded the 2003 Canon USA Businesswoman of the Year as well as the Office Depot Businesswoman of the Year Award in 2004. In 2006 Joan was a guest of the Ministry of Thailand and conducted a week long seminar/workshop for 150 Museum and university professionals on the topic of making object-bound museums more interpretive and interesting
Currently Joan is founder and CEO of Boardroom Golf Institute which conducts golf seminars for non-golfing business women who want to learn the game to build relationship, enhance their career, and network on the golf course. Joan coaches women to develop a game of golf to progress and enhance their career potential.
Recently Joan was interviewed for her thoughts and opinions on the Obama/Boehner golf outing, along with Don Van Natta, a New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner, on the radio program, The Takeaway, which is a national news program from WNYC Public Radio. Currently, Joan is writing a book regarding golf for women, Ascent to the Boardroom.
