SUMMARY

Reporting to the Executive Director, the Director of Museums is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Turner Museum, Children’s Museum, and Planetarium for the Museum of the Southwest. This position will be responsible for ensuring the Museums team implements and delivers on department strategy and planning across the organization.  This role will directly oversee the three building and education teams, ensuring the Museum is always professional and ready for guests to enjoy the state-of-the-art facilities.

This position requires a highly organized professional who is an effective communicator that can manage employees and volunteers at all levels and functions of the organization. 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Campus Operations:

• Oversees curatorial affairs, building, & education team to ensure the campus is excellently maintained with smooth customer service operations, coordinating with other departments as needed to meet the needs of each facility.
• Ensures on-site exhibits are excellently installed and maintained.
• Holds team accountable for exhibit schedule and on-time delivery, ensuring communications requests are fulfilled in a timely manner.
• Oversees technology operations in the public space for both museum and event operations.
• Collaborates with the facilities team on workplace services, such as office space planning and internal communications.
• Works closely with the Director of Development & Communications as well as the events team to ensure events on campus are appropriately planned, staffed, set up, and broken down.

Operational Planning & Strategy:

• Oversees annual budget development and management of multiple cost centers in collaboration with the Executive Director, finance consultant, and Board.
• Oversees development of long-term planning for campus capital improvements, including multi-year schedules and cost estimation.
• Monitors industry trends and identifies areas for improvement and greater efficiencies.

Collections, Curatorial, & Education Planning and Projects:

• Oversees exhibit schedule for all three museums, ensuring that deadlines are met, coordinated, and communicated.
• Holds regular meetings with cross-departmental stakeholders and facilitates communication between the museums team and other departments.
• Works with Executive Director, Building Managers, and Facilities teams to ensure the safety and security of guests, staff, collections, and other Museum property.
• Oversees partnership with security, facilities, and construction to ensure safekeeping of the art and manage emergency response including Code Adam.
• Works with building managers to coordinate collection movement, exhibit installation, external vendors, cleaning, maintenance & repairs, and other day-to-day duties.
• Works closely with Office & Visitor Services Manager to ensure reception coverage, coordinating additional part-time help as needed to support exhibits and events.
• Serves as the department liaison with other key administrative departments.

Building & Education Staff Management:

• Evaluates and improves existing team processes, identifying training opportunities as necessary.
• Ensures the Museums team is integrated into the broader campus teams, working to overcome internal siloes and inefficiencies.
• Mentors team leaders with the goal of developing them into strong managers and inspiring leaders.
• Creates a culture of learning, developing staff internally from junior positions and providing opportunity for advancement.
• Manages the Curator & Turner Museum Manager, Children’s Museum & Education Manager, and the Planetarium & Education Manager.
• Ensures each building and education Manager meets deadlines and works as a cohesive team.
• Ensures all museum events are known and tracked on the master events calendar for coordination and support purposes.
• Ensures compliance with American Alliance of Museum accreditation requirements, staying current with industry best practices.

 KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES

• Possesses exceptional interpersonal skills, with the ability to communicate with diplomacy.
• Has strong oral and written communication skills.
• Performs duties and responsibilities with a focus on customer service.
• Excellent organizational skills.
• Works well and collaborates effectively with a wide range of audiences and stakeholders, including staff volunteers, educators, funders, sponsors, members, general public, and other constituencies.
• Must work effectively in a team setting and collaborate across the organization.
• Proficient in Microsoft Suite (Excel and Word, required).
• Ability to work some evening and weekend events and programs required.
• Ability to work offsite, including outdoors.
• Must be able to lift up to 30 lbs.

 EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION

• A bachelor’s degree in museum studies, fine arts, business administration, or a related field is required.
• Five (5) years or more of management experience preferred.
• Seven (7) years or more of professional experience working in teams in the area of operations required.
• Any combination of experience and education, with a proven track record of success in the museum field will be considered in lieu of meeting exact qualifications.