PITTSFIELD â Megan Whilden comes from Monterey, Calif., a coastal city with breathtaking scenery and often offbeat tendencies.
She has lived in the Berkshires, another place with awesome scenery, for 20 years. And she has been known for coming up with some out-of-the box ideas. Case in point: Third Thursdays, Pittsfield s popular monthly downtown street festival, an idea that many thought wouldn t work when it debuted 14 years ago.
Whilden, the first cultural development director in Pittsfield s history, is the executive director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Berkshire Community College, a program with a curriculum geared toward older adults. Last spring, she took another chance with OLLI that paid off: Converting the senior citizens who attended OLLI s in-person classes and discussions to technology buffs who now can access those program through the Zoom platform.