Jennifer Laine is a passionate arts advocate and has spent the majority of her career increasing arts and cultural equity at the local, regional and state level. Since 2010, she has served as Executive Director of the San Benito County Arts Council, a local arts agency based in Hollister, California, where she has raised millions of dollars of arts funding for her rural community, built the county’s largest Arts in Education Program and developed dedicated arts programs and services for some of the county’s most under-resourced residents, including students with disabilities, incarcerated youth and economically-disadvantaged families. In 2022, Jennifer was part of a collaborative effort to bring in over $5 million in state arts funding for individual artist grants and creative workforce development to the Central Coast region and is currently working with the California Department of Transportation on two Clean California Highway Beautification Projects in District 5. Jennifer is a board member with California for the Arts/California Arts Advocates, serving as Board President and Policy Chair of CAA, and is also on the leadership team of the statewide Coalition of County Arts Agencies.

Jennifer holds a B.A. in Art History from UC Santa Cruz and a M.A. in Global Studies from the University of Leipzig, Germany. In 2023, she was awarded “Woman on the Year” by Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas. Jennifer lives in her hometown of Hollister with her three wonderful children, Henry, Anabelle and Sam.