Meet the Team

  • Heather Older wearing a black blouse. She has pink lipstick on and medium length blonde hair. She is smiling.

    Heather Older

    EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

    Heather Older is the Executive Director of the McMinnville Short Film Festival in McMinnville, Oregon. She has a deep love for film and filmmaking and has served as a voting judge for various short film festivals. As writer and producer, Heather is coming off the film festival circuit with her six-time award winning comedy short, "AC." Heather arrives from Los Angeles, where over the course of 23 years she wore various hats and headsets, most notably as Production Coordinator for Jon Favreau's Dinner for Five on IFC, and as a Project Manager in the Entertainment and Media Division at Korn Ferry International. She holds a BFA in Communications Design from Syracuse University and attended Central St. Martins in London where her concentration was storytelling through fine art photography. Above all, Heather is a screenwriter and is most often found lying awake at night worrying about dull protagonists, languishing third acts, and expository dialogue.

  • Gretchen Lawrence wearing a black and white patterned dress. She has short brown hair and a bright smile.

    Gretchen Lawrence

    BOARD CHAIR

    Gretchen Lawrence is an Oregon native who comes to McMinnville Short Film Festival with 20 years of non-profit work experience. Gretchen has worked for Legacy Health in philanthropy and community engagement since 2017. Her roles include stewarding donors and providing coordination for stewardship and fundraising events, benefiting all eight medical center sites. She has additional fundraising experience from positions at OHSU Foundation and Childpeace Montessori school. She is currently a member of the Association of Donor Relations Professionals and Women in Film Portland.

    Gretchen has served on the MSFF board since 2023, bringing her professional experience, her passion for community, and her love of film and the arts to the McMinnville Short Film Festival.

  • Woman with black top, dark hair, and bright pink lipstick. She is smiling.

    Angela Manginelli

    BOARD PRESIDENT

    Angela Manginelli is the Director of Marketing & Community Outreach and the President of the McMinnville Short Film Festival Board. She is a former higher education professional who brings more than two decades of experience in student and career development, alumni engagement, and diversity, equity and inclusion work. She comes to MSFF with more than 10 years of experience running an educational non-profit organization that helped returning study abroad students to process their experiences and be more globally-engaged citizens. 

    Angela has a Masters Degree in Student Affairs Administration in Higher Education and a B.S. in Photojournalism and Art Photography, both from Ball State University. She’s contributed to several publications, including coauthoring “Making Meaning of Education Abroad: A Journal for the Returnee Experience” and has presented at more than 50 national conferences in her career. 

    Outside of MSFF, she loves architecture, improv comedy, and traveling. She is the owner of Work is for the Birds Creative LLC, which specializes in illustration, creative writing, and photography. She is thrilled to continue expanding her knowledge of and appreciation for the film world, help MSFF continue to grow, and give back to her community.

  • Man with slight beard, pink button up shirt, and is smiling

    Kevin Olson

    BOARD TREASURER

    Kevin Olson joined the board in March of 2022 and is the current Treasurer. Kevin recently obtained enrolled agent status with the Internal Revenue Service. He is also an Oregon Licensed tax consultant who owns and operates four H&R Block franchisees. Kevin brings 18 years of business management experience to the board along with 40 years of deep rooted community connections. His primary focus in his career and life is to help people overcome stressful financial events by casting light on the unknown. When it’s not tax season you can always find him at the bowling alley throwing gutter balls or sipping a beverage on 3rd street in the beautiful McMinnville downtown area.

  • Diane McKnight

    BOARD MEMBER

  • Woman with long blond hair and smiling

    Megan Ward Stevens

    BOARD MEMBER

    Megan Ward Stevens is an award-winning film director from Portland, Oregon. Her first short film, BEAST, won Best First Time Director at the McMinnville Short Film Festival, 2020 as well as Best Short Film at Oregon Independent Film Festival 2020. Most recently she was the showrunner’s assistant for Kill the Orange-Faced Bear for TBS. She has directed and produced numerous new plays, including Maple & Vine by Jordan Harrison, the world premiere of 99 Ways To Fuck a Swan by Kimberly Rosenstock and the world premiere of The Bullet Round by Steven Drukman, for which she received a Regional Arts and Culture Grant.  At Portland Center Stage she was the artistic and literary assistant, started a new works reading series and assisted directed on numerous productions. Stevens produced the Young Playwrights Festival for Lakewood Theatre where she workshopped plays written by high school students with professional actors and mentor playwrights. She is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and holds a BA Honors in Drama/Theatre Arts from Goldsmiths College, University of London. 

Festival Founders

  • Dan Morrow

    Dan Morrow

    CO-FOUNDER

    Dan Morrow is the co-founder of the MSFF and served as the Technical Director since its inception in 2011 until 2022. Dan is currently serving as a Festival Programmer for MSFF. Dan graduated from Oregon State University with a B.S. in Computer Science, and pursued his love of computer programming by working at Microsoft and as a freelance programmer. He and his wife Nancy moved to McMinnville in 2000 and in 2001 purchased Movietime Video. Through owning a video store, the idea of a film festival was born. Dan now keeps busy as a software developer for Bottle360, an emerging point-of-sale system in the wine industry. He and Nancy live in McMinnville with their 2 sassy senior cats, and they spend as much time as they can with their toddler grandson.

  • Nancy Morrow

    Nancy Morrow

    CO-FOUNDER

    Nancy Morrow is the co-founder of the MSFF and served as the Executive Director from 2011 to 2022. Nancy is the past Chair of the Board and currently is a Festival Programmer. Nancy graduated from Oregon State University with a B.S. in Business Education. Instead of teaching, Nancy has worked in the administrative field along with doing event coordination. After working at Microsoft as an Executive Assistant, Nancy left in 1998 to open her own business offering administrative support. Nancy’s administrative background along with running two retail businesses (a video store and an art gallery) led her to the wine industry where for the past few years she has been working at Björnson Vineyard (Salem, OR) as the General Manager/Wine Club Manager. But she’s never too busy to spend time with Dan and their amazing grandson.