Traverse Bay Children’s Advocacy Center Welcomes New CEO

There’s a changing of the guard coming to a Northern Michigan agency that works to help kids in need.

The head of the Traverse Bay Children’s Advocacy Center is stepping down, and a new leader is already in place. The CAC works to help child victims of both sexual and physical abuse, and children who witness violence. They work hand-in-hand with law enforcement to help with interviews and determine how best to help.

As of Friday, Lisa Migazzi takes over for retiring CEO Ginger Kadlec. Migazzi says Kadlec is a visionary leader who has helped the community, local children, and with the advocacy center’s recent expansion.

“Ginger is a really phenomenal leader and she’s done a wonderful job of introducing me to the community partners, to bringing me along on new initiatives and programing,” Migazzi says. “It’s been it’s a bittersweet change. I’m really, really going to miss serving with Ginger. But she’s done really incredible things for our organization.” She adds, “I just really want to take the time to thank Ginger Kadlec for her leadership. She’s a phenomenal human being and she’s a really incredible visionary leader and it has been a pleasure to serve underneath her. And I look forward to being able to take the helm from here.”

Director of Community Engagement Lauren Brandstatter agrees.

“Ginger is a phenomenal leader. She has vision. She changed this organization for the better. She has grown this organization. She has so much passion. So I’m very saddened to see her mentorship leave, even though she’s not going very far. But I am overwhelmingly excited that Lisa will be stepping into this role because she is extremely passionate. She’s driven, she cares so deeply for the mission for employees. So it is with very mixed emotion but overwhelmingly excited,” Brandstatter says.

Migazzi is ready to tackle the future for the organization. “We are working really hard to grow our staffing to keep up with the growing demand we are seeing. The more work that we are doing in the community with programing, the more reports that it’s leading to. Which at first seems like it’s not a good thing, to be seeing an increase in numbers with children and families coming through here. But ultimately, we’re doing our job to get the message out there that it is in our community. And we’re working together with our community to be responsible for ending child abuse together.”

“On the child protection front, in addition to scaling both our therapy and intervention services to meet that growing demand, we’re also looking for innovative ways to increase our revenue stream and increase donor engagement. One of those recently is our Seeds for Protection fundraiser. We are also looking to increase our programing and partnership with community groups so that our message is continued to be put out there for the public,” Migazzi says.

Brandstatter adds, “I think it’s kind of crucial that the community understands the work that we do and also just how much our employees and our staff care for the mission and are driven to end child abuse - to make a difference for the children and families in our community, and to have a holistic approach to help and care for families from the very beginning of their journey here to the very end. We want to be alongside them to make sure that they are healthy and happy and thriving in all ways possible. And I hope the community supports all of the work that we’re doing and understands how much we care for the mission and the families in our community.”

Migazzi has a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership and a Bachelor’s degree in Health Community from Grand Valley State University. Migazzi begins as CEO effective Friday, which is also Kadlec’s last day with the CAC.