NYIGF to Hold Memorial Service for Carol Sedestrom Ross

GDA Staff -- Gifts and Dec, 6/17/2010 9:57:47 AM

White Plains, NY — Show management company GLM will host a "Celebration of Carol Sedestrom Ross" at New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Saturday, August 14, at 6:15 p.m., during the New York International Gift Fair. Ross, GLM's emeritus director of craft marketing, died unexpectedly of a heart attack on Monday, June 14, in Houston, TX.

Ross joined GLM as director of craft marketing in 1992, and for 15 years developed its Handmade division at the NYIGF, as well as at GLM-managed gift shows in San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, Washington, Seattle, Los Angeles and Atlanta. In 2001, GLM appointed Ross assistant sales manager of its new SOURCES show for international companies.

Prior to joining GLM, she was founder and CEO of American Craft Enterprises (ACE), which she started in 1975 to provide a professional management organization for a regional ACC Craft Fair which had outgrown its volunteer system. She was named senior vice president in charge of membership, development, public relations and special project The Year of American Craft, for ACE's parent organization, the American Craft Council, following its reorganization in 1990.

Ross also served as a craft consultant to the National Endowment for the Arts, the State Department, the White House and the Corporate Council on Africa, and was a board member of Aid to Artisans and chair of the Craft Organization Directors Association, where she spearheaded the first survey to determine the economic impact of crafts on the national economy. In 2004, Ross received the Artisan Advocate Award from Aid to Artisans and in the late 1980s, a Lifetime Achievement Award at The National Museum of Women in the Arts.

In 2006, Ross went into semi-retirement, became a consultant to GLM and moved to San Miguel Allende, Mexico, where she became involved in philanthropic organizations such as Centro Infantil San Pablo, a pre-school for underprivileged 3, 4 and 5 year-old Mexican children; Feed the Hungry and Hospice.

She is survived by her husband, Adrian, two daughters Kirsten Sedestrom and Amy Love, and three grandchildren, Madison, Gus and Gordon.

Memorial gifts may be sent to Centro Infantil San Pablo Inc., PMB 141A, 220 N. Zapata Hwy Ste 11, Laredo, TX 78043.