Sarasota Opera recently hired Lana Mullen as its communications coordinator. A former art director at Metropolitan Life Insurance in New York, Mullen left the corporate world in 2007 to serve in various functions of Disaster Relief for the American Red Cross, deploying to national disasters in addition to supporting disaster relief operations in greater New York. In 2010, she undertook an eight-year assignment managing people-to-people educational and humanitarian programs in Cuba.