TCPL Foundation executive director retires

Nov. 12 marked Suzanne Smith Jablonski’s last day as executive director of the Tompkins County Public Library (TCPL) Foundation after announcing her plans to retire late last month. She had served nearly two decades as the Foundation’s leader, and she said she plans to pursue other professional opportunities in the coming months and years.

The TCPL Foundation is a nonprofit partner to TCPL that helps to inspire community support and raise money to fund library programs and operations. Smith Jablonski said that when she joined the TCPL Foundation in 2002, she was immediately drawn to that mission.

“My background has always been in nonprofit development and nonprofit management,” she said. “I was looking for an opportunity to take all of my prior experience and put it to good use in a leadership role. And when I saw the position here at the public library, it was everything I had been hoping for because I wanted to be someplace that was truly a community center.”

Smith Jablonski originally got to know Ithaca and Tompkins County as a student at Ithaca College in the early ’90s, where she also met her husband. After graduating with a master’s degree in public administration, she dived straight into the nonprofit world, working for the New York Botanical Garden, the Hudson River Museum and other organizations before moving back to Ithaca to take on her new role at the TCPL Foundation.

Having come from the New York City area, coming to Ithaca for college was a big change for Smith Jablonski, so much so that she remembers thinking, “Get me out of this one-horse town” on at least one occasion during her studies. But by graduation and in the years following, she and her husband thought of Ithaca often, and so, when she got the chance to come back, she took it.

“We came here because we really embraced the values that we saw embodied here and wanted a different lifestyle and less focused on keeping up with the Joneses, and more focused on the people that you surround yourself with and all of the natural wonders we have here,” she said.

Smith Jablonski knew she wanted to work in the nonprofit sector for a long time, she said, and she was glad to be able to continue that work at the TCPL Foundation.

“I knew pretty early on that my skills and background and my passion really lie in doing things that weren’t necessarily aimed at generating profit, but generating social good,” she said. “What I love about the library is that there are so many different ways that people can connect. And the library serves people of all ages, all needs, all interests, asks nothing of them, other than the willingness to come in and explore. And that really appealed to me.”

The first few years at the TCPL Foundation were a “wonderful adventure,” Smith Jablonski said. While there was a considerable learning curve, she said she felt supported by the community right away.

When Smith Jablonski took the position in 2002, TCPL had only been at its current location on East Green Street for a couple of years, so she often felt the sense of working for a new library. And around the same time, TCPL was experiencing significant funding cuts from the county, which, similar to more recent cuts, put quite a strain on operations that Smith Jablonski had to help navigate.

“Then, as now, trying to find ways for donors and community members to support the work of the library at a time when the main source of funding may be constrained is always a challenge,” she said. “We’re fortunate because there’s such great community support for the library. But that balance of public and private support for a public institution, and learning how those pieces fit together and how that plays out, that was a big part of my early time here.”

When Smith Jablonski first started, Janet Steiner was the TCPL director, and Steiner’s successor was Susan Currie. Smith Jablonski said that during the “Janet era,” she really grew into her role as executive director, so when Currie arrived in 2009, she was ready to go full-force into meeting fundraising needs for the library.

Smith Jablonski regards this fundraising effort, dubbed The 21st Century Library Campaign, as one of her signature achievements. The TCPL Foundation successfully raised over $3.5 million in that fundraiser, which supported a capital project to create a new teen center, makerspace, digital lab and local history room, all of which current library-goers still enjoy today.

“We knew that the library was going to be celebrating its sesquicentennial in 2014 and that that was going to be an opportunity for us to celebrate the library’s long history while investing in its future,” Smith Jablonski said. “Working on The 21st Century Library Campaign and witnessing the immense generosity and enthusiasm of so many people who give their time and their contributions and their energy to making the library be what it needed to be to serve the community in this second decade of the 21st century was really just such a privilege.”

Combined with that big fundraising effort, Smith Jablonski helped raise over $8 million for TCPL during her tenure and helped grow the Foundation’s assets nearly fivefold, according to a recent press release.

As for why Smith Jablonski chose to step down from her position at the TCPL Foundation, she said that it was simply the right time.

“With the TCPL undergoing a leadership transition itself, it just seemed like the right time for the next iteration of library and Foundation leadership to work together to see where this place is going to go in the future,” she said. “And for me personally, it just became clear that it was a moment to explore new things.”

While Smith Jablonski has many fond memories she will always carry with her from her time at the TCPL Foundation, she said that what she’ll remember and cherish most of all is the people she worked and interacted with on a regular basis.

“When you’re in it, you don’t necessarily see the big picture, and now, having the chance to look back, I just think just how truly special so many of our donors and my board members and my colleagues, my staff [are],” she said. “Every single individual who’s been on my Foundation team has been just super talented, creative and hardworking.”

And that dedication in TCPL and Foundation staff really shone through during the pandemic, Smith Jablonski said. Tompkins Weekly has written before about the sorts of challenges TCPL and the TCPL Foundation have faced throughout the past year and a half (see t.ly/PGqL), and Smith Jablonski said that the pandemic highlighted the importance of TCPL to the community.

“When the shutdown happened, … it just helped me understand what I most value in my community,” she said. “And so many people I knew said, ‘I missed the library. My family and I missed the library. It was such a part of our weekly routine. And we used to run into people that we knew and just missed that in-person experience of being here in the library.’ So, it was really powerful to be reminded once more of how important the library is to the people in the community.”

Now that Smith Jablonski has stepped down, TCPL Foundation Assistant Director Kerry Barnes is serving as interim executive director while the Board of Directors conducts a national search to fill the position, according to the recent release. For more information about the TCPL Foundation, visit tcplfoundation.org.

Jessica Wickham is the managing editor of Tompkins Weekly. Submit story ideas to them at editorial@vizellamedia.com.