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Following the March 31 retirement of President and CEO Sarah Gurtis, who led the Council on Aging of Volusia County for more than six years, Eveline Kraljic and Terri Karol have taken new roles as co-executive directors at the 54-year-old nonprofit agency, COA announced in a news release.

Kraljic, originally from The Netherlands, joined COA in 2015 as chief operating officer and director of human resources. Previously, her career focused on for-profit businesses, including Brown & Brown Inc. in Daytona Beach.

In addition to serving on the Duvall Homes Board of Regents, Kraljic is the immediate past president of the Volusia/Flagler Chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management and past president of Pace Center for Girls-Volusia/Flagler.

“Terri and I are very excited about our new roles,” Kraljic says in the release. “We are both very grateful that Sarah is leaving the organization in such a strong position to move forward. Her phenomenal leadership put us on firm footing to continue to deliver vital services to the growing at-risk senior population here in Volusia County.”

Karol, a certified public accountant who also has an MBA, has served as COA’s chief financial officer since 2014. Prior to joining COA, she worked for seven years as an auditor and audit manager with Olivari & Associates and five years as chief financial officer with the Children’s Advocacy Center.

“Our team is well-positioned to move our mission forward creatively and purposefully in these unusual times,” she says in the news release. “We are excited about what lies ahead, and we look forward to getting to know more of the community as the community gets to know more about us and the important work we do.”

During her presidency, Gurtis guided the organization through an organizational restructuring as well as the recovery effort following Hurricane Irma in 2017, when the COA headquarters was destroyed. Since the COVID-19 outbreak last spring, COA has not only maintained its staff in place, but has absorbed substantial growth as a result of increased service needs for the elderly of Volusia County, another news release says.

Established in 1967, Council on Aging of Volusia Inc. (COA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide most-vulnerable elderly citizens with needed services that enable them to remain safely, comfortably, and with dignity in their own homes.

In 2020, COA said, it provided more than 375,000 nutritious meals to local seniors; initiated a Telephone Reassurance Program that made more than 10,000 phone calls to clients; and launched a PetMeals on Wheels program to provide food and supplies to the pets of Meals on Wheels clients.

For information on additional services, visit the COA website at www.coavolusia.org.