National Czech & Slovak Museum president and CEO announces retirement

CEDAR RAPIDS - President and chief executive officer of the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library Gail Naughton has announced she will retire next year.

Naughton, who has held the position since 2002, will leave the organization in June 2018, according to a news release from the organization Wednesday.

'It's one of these times when you have mixed feelings,” Naughton said. 'I am excited about being retired ...

. On the other hand, this is a very hard place to leave. It's such a wonderful organization, with wonderful people.”

Naughton is the second president and CEO in the museum's history, according to a news release from the museum. She was paid $117,921 as well as an additional $3,208 in other compensation in 2014, according to the museum's Form 990 filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

A nationwide search for Naughton's successor is set to begin within a couple months, said Forrest Meyer, director of marketing and communications.

The museum's board of trustees already has begun the process of creating a search committee, under the advice of a consulting firm that has not been named, said Tom DeBoom, chairman of the museum's board of trustees.

'The organization is in a really good place in terms of its organizational and financial position,” DeBoom said. 'We're looking for the direction of the museum for many years to come, and who's best to lead this down the road.”

The museum found a new home under Naughton's leadership after the 2008 flood caused more than $11 million in damage to its 18,000-square-foot facility. The museum raised more than $28 million, according to the news release, allowing the organization to move the original building to a new foundation and open its doors once again in 2012.

'It was a real soul-searching time,” DeBoom recalled. Naughton 'just kept encouraging and pulling and pushing.”

Naughton said leading the organization through the rebuilding process put her role into 'a whole new realm.”

'I think it drew from me abilities that I didn't know I had,” Naughton said. 'It demanded more. It was tiring and it was hard work, but it was so worth it for Cedar Rapids, for the Czech and Slovaks everywhere, and just for myself.”

To Naughton, rebuilding the museum - which she said had become an icon of surviving the disaster - had an important role in bringing the city back as well.

'I knew it was important to the people, not just Czechs and Slovaks, but the whole community,” she said. 'It was sign. If the museum could come back, the city could come back and that was important to me.”

Looking back on her time as president and CEO, Naughton said she also was honored the museum and library received the 2013 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, an award from the Institute of Museum and Library Service that honors organizations for the service to their communities.

Naughton said she intends to stay in Cedar Rapids after her retirement, but isn't sure how she'll stay involved with the museum.

'I won't lose touch with the museum or the people,” she said.

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