BIDDEFORD — The Community Bicycle Center announced Monday that Bronwyn Potthoff Barnett will take over as the new executive director, replacing founder Andy Greif, who is moving to New Mexico later this year.

Barnett, whose position becomes effective Aug. 1, comes from the University of New England, where she served as coordinator of grants and outreach. From 2011 to 2014, she served as development and communications director at the CBC.

“Bronwyn has a long history here at the CBC and in the community,” Greif said. “She very much understands the CBC and our work. She’s well-connected in many ways.

“She’s very familiar and loved by the kids she’s served over the years, with our volunteers and donors, and she’s gifted at all parts of running a nonprofit, and those she doesn’t have skills at, she has the ability to learn.”

Greif started the city’s first Earn-a-Bike organization on Gooch Street in 2001. What is now known as the CBC was incorporated as a nonprofit organization four years later.

In 2014, the CBC moved into its present facility on Granite Street, where it employs four people, draws more than 100 volunteers and serves about 400 children in the community.

As a nonprofit, the CBC aims to provide enrichment programs to help area youth develop life skills by engaging them in bicycle-related activities. The center helps children develop safe cycling and bicycle repair skills, as well as strategies for civic engagement and mentoring relationships.

Barnett began working with the CBC as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer in 2009. As a VISTA volunteer, she worked to build the organizational, administrative and financial capacities of nonprofit organizations in order to bring people out of poverty. The commitment was for a year, but Barnett chose to stay for two years before she was hired by the center in 2011.

“We are fortunate to have her skills, knowledge and drive as she assumes leadership from our founding director, Andy Greif,” said CBC Board of Directors President Leanne Kazilionis. “She can seamlessly build upon his vision and ensure that we continue with our outstanding programming as we serve the community of Biddeford and beyond.”

Barnett said she is excited about returning to the CBC, where she had worked since graduating college, after taking a break from the organization to work at UNE.

“I thought it was for me personally to kind of step back and look around. It was a good time to step back and re-evaluate where I’m personally at,” Barnett said. “I can’t wait to get back into the CBC. I’m excited about my new role.”

Barnett said her first priority as executive director will be assessing the CBC’s 2013-16 strategic plan – whose goals, according to Greif, include continuing and expanding the mission work done by the center, developing a succession plan involving leadership development, and nurturing staff and volunteers to sustain the CBC.

Following evaluation of the current strategic plan, Greif said a plan for 2017-20 will be prepared to meet the needs of the organization.

“Our primary mission and our goals aren’t really going to change. It’s just the way that we do them might be a little different,” Barnett said. “We’ve achieved a lot of our strategic goals, and now we need to re-evaluate what our priorities are moving forward and what we’re going to work on for the future.”

And, looking to the future, Greif said, he could think of no one better-suited for the job.

“(Barnett is) just the right person at the right time. She understands what we’re doing, she can incorporate her vision and thoughts with what we’re doing,” Greif said. “She’s somebody who can really jump in here and start.”

— Staff Writer Alan Bennett can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or abennett@journaltribune.com.