Culture shift for Cedar Rapids museums

CEDAR RAPIDS - Terry Pitts officially retires from the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art on Sunday. Maybe now he'll know what day it is.

Museums are repositories of the past, but those who run them live in the future.

Looking back over 13 years of accomplishments in the executive director's chair, he said he's “probably forgotten” most of them.

“Part of the job of a director is to look forward, not backward. Somehow I'm always looking so far forward I don't know what I'm doing today,” said Pitts, 63, of Cedar Rapids.

He's joining two other longtime local museum directors - Rich Patterson at Indian Creek Nature Center and Tom Moore at the African American Museum of Iowa - who retired or assumed new roles this month. They're leaving their organizations on solid footing, but taking with them irreplaceable years of experience.

And making Casey Prince, at 35, one of the seniors on the city's cultural scene.

The new old guard

That's a weird reality for Prince, executive director since 2007 at Theatre Cedar Rapids, 102 Third St. SE. While that organization technically isn't a museum, Prince has been embraced by the museum chiefs who network regularly.

“(Brucemore's) David Janssen and I are going from being the new kids on the block to the old guard almost overnight,” said Prince, of Cedar Rapids. “It'll be hard for me to stop to thinking of myself as the new kid on the block among the cultural organizations because there have been so many longtime anchors. When we get together, there's been so much institutional knowledge in the room. ... All kinds of information comes out of all those quick, little conversations, just because they've been doing their thing for so long.”

Curator Sean Ulmer of Cedar Rapids has been named interim director at the Museum of Art, 410 Third Ave. SE; John Myers of Marion joined the Nature Center staff, 6665 Otis Rd. SE, on May 28; and Michael Kates of Des Moines came to the African American Museum of Iowa, 55 12th Ave. SE, on May 1.

The changing of the guard, no matter how well planned, is never easy.

“Transition is hard on non-profits and frequent transition is not good,” said Patterson, 63, of Cedar Rapids. “Those that seem to transition a lot never seem to get anywhere.”

He's stepping out of the day-to-day management role and into a fundraising position at the nature center he helped put on the map the past 35 years. He's proud that it was the state's first such center, which has served as a model for educational and environmental programming across the state and nation.

Challenges of change

“One of the large (challenges) when an executive director leaves, is that it takes the board close to a year to really process that, advertise, interview and get somebody on board - then it takes somebody some months to come up to speed, maybe a year or two,” Patterson said.

“The norm is a three-year tenure for a non-profit director, so half the time - maybe two-thirds of the time - for many non-profits is spent in this recruiting/adjusting phase. Plus, it's expensive finding somebody, to get him in place and when you look at these revolving doors, they're just loading so much energy to that instead of to mission stuff.

“So when you see Terry at 10 or 11 years, Tom's about the same, and I've been there 35, that's that many times the board and the organization hasn't had to do that,” Patterson said.

“That's not to say new blood isn't good and you don't want to keep somebody who's not effective, but if somebody is effective and they stay around for a while, that's enormously helpful to the organization and to everybody it serves.”

The three transitioning museums - and yes, Patterson said the Nature Center is considered a museum - are in especially fortunate positions to have a month or more of overlap between outgoing and incoming directors.

Prince had that same luxury at Theatre Cedar Rapids in early 2007, when Richard Barker turned his focus to artistic direction before retiring at the end of 2007, after 26 years with the organization.

“The overlap is going to benefit them,” Prince said. “Rich (Patterson) still staying involved with a development role will help whoever's stepping into his shoes. It's that proverbial ‘Where do you keep the stapler? How do I dial out of this place? What button do I push on the copier?' It's those simple little things, up to ‘Don't forget it's August - you gotta get these three grant reports in.'

“It's amazing what is locked up in the brains of those guys that have been doing this for so many years,” Prince said.

New perspectives

With more than 24 years at Theatre Cedar Rapids, Administrative and Finance Director J. David Carey has straddled the old and new administrations.

“It was really interesting because the theater had operated kind of in the same structure and same format for most of the time I had been there,” said Carey, 60, of Cedar Rapids. “This was bringing in a new energy and a new way of looking at things, so as someone who had been with the old way of looking at things, there was some adjustment to be made.

“Probably the biggest thing I had to do is just take a step back and learn (not) to assume the old way of doing things is the right way of doing things and move out of that framework. It was definitely a challenge to begin with.”

Prince's first order of business was to get the theater's finances on better footing, then restructure the staff, combining some part-time jobs into singular full-time positions.

“All the people working at the theater didn't really have a sense of what that next year was going to be - and that was unsettling for a lot of people,” Carey said. As a result, some staff stayed and others moved on. Carey, who had been the associate director and handled marketing, was happy to tap into his business background for the new financial position.

After so many years of working with colleagues his age and older, Carey suddenly had a boss 25 years his junior. That didn't throw him.

“The age was really not an issue for me at all, because from a personality point of view, Casey brought so much energy to the position and enthusiasm, that it was like a shot in the arm, a shot of adrenaline,” Carey said. “The question mark for me was experience. ... But new perspectives, new ways of looking at things can be a really good thing.”

Making way for new blood wasn't an easy for Moore, one of the founders of the African American Museum of Iowa. The needs of the organization fueled his decision to retire May 31.

“I had prayed over it considerably,” said Moore, 67, of Hiawatha, who stepped into the executive director role in 2003. “Just the challenges had worn on me. I enjoyed a good bit of it - especially the people, but it got to the point where raising the money every year was beginning to really stress me out at times. That wasn't good for the organization.”

He thought back to the founders' original intent in 1993 - to establish a program “for perpetuity, one that would not end when we died or got tired.”

“I felt we had positioned (the museum) for a quality professional to come in and be worthy of their professionalism,” Moore said. “We got to the point where we could pay someone a decent wage. It was definitely time for me to step back.”

During their month of overlap, Moore took Kates around the state to introduce him to the museum's partners, from Council Bluffs to Davenport.

Building relationships

For a non-profit, “it's all about relationships - not only for the funding, but also for the history itself,” Moore said. “People need a level of trust, and that comes with time.”

Another challenge is building a team spirit, something Prince had already done by being a volunteer and actor at Theatre Cedar Rapids before helming the staff. Ulmer will slide easily from one position to another while the art museum seeks to fill the director's position. Kates will be starting anew.

“It's a challenge for him to come in and make it known that he is the new authority, without beating people over the head with that knowledge,” Moore said. “He's not going to do everything the way I did it, and that's a good thing.”

Prince is excited for the way the museum boards have planned for the succession of their longtime directors.

“It's a testament to the volunteer leadership in this town that more and more organizations are going beyond the search and thinking ahead to the next one,” he said, “having a plan in place for when folks want to retire - and how to not just exit with dignity, but how to exit in a way that actually launches the organization forward.”

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Related sidebar: Former leaders look back, look ahead

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A look at the new leaders:

• African American Museum of Iowa, 55 12th Ave. SE: Michael Kates of Des Moines. Over the past eight years, Kates has held positions of increasing responsibility at the Fort Des Moines Museum and Education Center in Des Moines, serving as executive director since 2011. A Waterloo native, he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in history, with an emphasis in public history, at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.

• Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, 410 Third Ave. SE: Curator Sean Ulmer of Cedar Rapids. Ulmer has been named interim executive director, while the board searches to fill the position vacated today (6/30/13) by Terry Pitts. Ulmer came to the museum in 2005 from curating and exhibition positions at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, Cornell University and Ohio State University. He holds degrees in art history from the University of Toledo/Toledo Museum of Art and Ohio State University.

• Indian Creek Nature Center, 6665 Otis Rd. SE: John Myers of Marion. Myers, executive director of operations, was previously senior district executive for the Hawkeye Area Council, Boy Scouts of America, and was co-founder and director of operations for Independent Child Advocate Services. He completed his Eagle Scout Project at the Nature Center 18 years ago.