SANTA FE, NM.- The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum announces Debbie Brient as its new Director of Museum Advancement. Brient joins the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas where she held the position of assistant vice president for University Advancement and oversaw corporate and foundation relations. Brient was formerly the director of Philanthropy for the Texas program of The Nature Conservancy where she oversaw fundraising teams in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.

A long-time admirer of Georgia O’Keeffe, Brient attended the opening of O’Keeffe’s first retrospective show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1988. She has visited the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum many times since its opening in 1997 and was one of the first to visit Ms. O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu home after it opened to the public.

“Debbie is bright, intelligent and outgoing and I am thrilled to welcome her to our team,” said Robert A. Kret, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum director. “She brings a significant amount of experience from for-profit and not-for-profit communities and I am confident that she will make a significant contribution to the Museum’s success.”

“Georgia O’Keeffe is my favorite American artist and Santa Fe is my favorite American city,” said Brient. “To have the opportunity to help protect the artistic legacy of Ms. O’Keeffe, her life, and American Modernism for future generations is a dream come true.”

Brient was born and raised in Kansas and received a Bachelors of Science degree in secondary education from the University of Kansas. Before entering the non-profit world, Debbie held management positions at broadcast television affiliates in San Antonio, Albuquerque and Los Angeles. She has studied, lived and worked in Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and Spain and is bilingual in English and Spanish.

As Brient enters the Santa Fe community and begins work, the Museum prepares for its latest exhibitions “Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams: The Hawai‘i Pictures” and “Georgia O’Keeffe: Abiquiu Views,” both to open February 7, 2014.