Stonington ― The Stonington Community Center’s new Executive Director Matthew Haugen has always moved in one direction: forward.

In his new role, Haugen, 40, wants to use his experiences and education to maintain and expand the broad array of programming the COMO currently offers, build strong community relationships and serve the community.

“I think in all of the things that I’ve done, there’s been opportunity. Yes, opportunity for me to grow, but also opportunity for me to make an impact,” he said during a recent interview.

Haugen, a Texas native, stepped into the role this spring after former Director Beth-Ann Stewart announced her retirement.

“It’s about really making an impact on the community, engaging the community, and bringing them together in one place where we can really provide essential enrichment programs for the lives of people in the surrounding areas,” he said.

He wants to build upon the community relationships Stewart formed to expand what he calls the “ecosystem” of interconnected programming that the community center offers, and sees many possibilities for that expansion.

He’d like to use the COMO auditorium for theater productions, a concert series during the winter or even offer plein air painting classes on the COMO beach.

Haugen said a solo backpacking trip through South America after his graduation from Kenyon College in Ohio caused him to be much more deliberate about how he could impact the world around him.

Haugen, a talented tennis player, next moved to China to help open a tennis academy for professional and aspiring Olympic athletes in China. He spent three years as the head tennis coach for a provincial sports center operated by the Chinese government and ran a consulting company helping aspiring Chinese athletes come to America to pursue a college education.

His experiences informed his doctoral work in Cultural and Interpretive Studies at the University of Illinois, and he spent five years traveling back and forth to China on a Fulbright Scholarship,

During the summers, he returned to Westerly to work at the Misquamicut Club where he initially began working, alongside his college roommate, during his undergraduate years.

“I feel like I am a perpetual intellectual; I want to learn, want to grow. I want to find new opportunities,” he said of his experiences.

He said studying sport for development, a field that links sports programming with community engagement and sustainable service projects, as well as the interconnection of society and sports have prepared him for the challenge of running the COMO.

He said the diversity and interconnectedness of programming make the COMO successful and impactful for the community: the food grown in the COMO garden program is used in cooking classes, and both of those intersect with nutritional education programming.

Ultimately, he said he wants to build on the COMO’s success in providing programming that allows people to grow and inspires them to find what they are passionate about across the life span and socioeconomic status.

When asked about his priorities for the center, he said, “No. 1: opening doors. Opening doors to our center and making sure that you have a place here, no matter what you want to do.”