Our Team

Meet the Brooklyn Arts Center team

Jay and Tara Tatum, Brooklyn Arts Center Owners

Jay & Tara Tatum / Owners

Jay Tatum is a true-blue hometown boy, born and reared in our very own Port City. Tara is local too, by way of Fayetteville. They have been married for 20 years and have two boys, Noah and Ethan. Tara is a CPA and works as the practice manager of Wilmington Plastic Surgery. Jay started his DJ company, Active Entertainment, in 2001. Jay and his DJs have provided the music for nearly 300 weddings and events at the BAC. After spending so much time working in Brooklyn, it seemed only natural that Jay should one day buy the place. And so in September 2018, that’s what he and Tara did. With their wealth of business and entertainment experience and their commitment to family and community, Jay and Tara will put their full focus on maintaining and strengthening the Brooklyn Arts Center’s standing as the premier, multi-use event venue in the Southeast.

Charyl Williams / Director of Events & Marketing

Although she’s new to the staff, the truth is Charyl has been a much loved member of the BAC family since more or less day one. She has been the owner—and Captain—of Social Butterfly Events for more than a decade and has designed and managed more than a hundred gorgeous weddings at the venue since 2011—and hundreds more locally and around southeastern North Carolina. Few, if any, know Brooklyn better than Charyl, so the evolution from SBE to BAC has been effortless and, frankly, joyous. Why joyous? Because that’s the perfect word for Charyl. Her smarts, experience, steady hand, and fabulous sense of humor have in the past and will in the future continue to light up N 4th Street. She was born and reared in Lockport, New York, but has called Wilmington home for 20 years. She’s been married nine years to her husband Eric Williams, and together they are the proud parents of a six-year-old ball of pure awesome energy named EJ. “I’m excited to still be a part of the Wilmington wedding community and thrilled to be involved with all the other fantastic BAC events,” Charyl says.

Eric FLore, Brooklyn Arts Center Manager

Eric Flore / Facilities Manager

Eric has lived in Wilmington for 31 years. But make no mistake, the man is from Pittsburgh. And no matter what, you can’t take the Steelers out of a Pittsburgh native son. He is a retired public school teacher and is the father of three—one son in the Navy, one son in the Marines, one daughter in college. As if teaching for 31 years and raising three outstanding kids isn’t enough, Eric has written two novels and lots of short stories. He’s also an ordained minister and has been active in the Wilmington church community for decades. If you can believe there is a side left over, he painted on the side for the past three decades. The point here is that Eric takes all that experience and energy and power and love and puts it in play at the BAC, to keep the venue gorgeous and on solid ground.