The Ordway Center is the main venue for the Minnesota Opera, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Schubert Club, the Twin Cities' largest presenter of touring classical artists; the center also hosts touring Broadway shows.

Galligan, who was appointed in 2002, leaves the center in a fiscally secure position. He balanced the budget and raised annual contributions by 65 percent and the endowment by $4 million, according to the Star-Tribune.

Some thought less of his artistic abilities, however. "He was an excellent fiscal manager, but he was not someone who knew his way too well around the artistic side of the theater," Roxanne Givens Copeland, a former board chair, told the paper.

During his tenure Galligan also helped launch the St. Paul Conservatory for the Arts, a charter high school, and established a task force to smooth strained relationships with Ordway tenants.