In November of 1980 I started my first full time museum job. The day I got my first pay check, the muffler fell off my car. Looking back, I’m glad that I didn’t let that moment trigger a “what have I gotten myself into, I can barely afford a new muffler” reassessment of my career choice. I was all in and I benefited from working with two wonderful mentors who shared their wisdom and love of the field in ways that inspired me to embrace the work.

While I am not ready to retire, I do find myself looking back fairly often. I have to say; on balance, it has been a remarkable and fascinating ride. At any given moment it has been gratifying, grueling, surprising, heart-warming, amusing, and humbling. Also, I have had the honor of spending most of my career at one very special place. The rewards of this good fortune are too numerous to count.

Over the years I have learned quickly how small the field, is even on a national scale. That fact alone offers wonderful opportunities to turn colleagues into friends. It is also a field where you get what you give. In that regard participating in professional organizations and activities has been invaluable to me on many levels. NEMA has always been my professional home. I started as a PAG Chair, served on the board, and eventually as President. NEMA also afforded me the visibility to be noticed and ultimately voted onto the board of AAM where I also served one term as Vice Chair.  Subsequently, I served a term on the AASLH Council. As a board member of these organizations I came to better appreciate, based on my own expectations, what my own institution’s board might be looking for from me as director. These experiences helped me grow as a professional and made me, I believe, a better director.

In thinking about my career, the biggest surprise is how quickly the time has gone by. I know, that’s what old folks say but darn if it isn’t true. While the good times have more than outweighed the bad, some of the bad times have been memorable. On the upside, the opportunity to mentor staff, work closely with valued colleagues, and see the immediate impact of institutional decisions and programs on visitors of all types, while endeavoring to leave a place better than you found it, is deeply rewarding. On the downside, rather than bore you with the gory details I will just say –rabid cat, rats, drunk with a pocketknife, garbage truck, bag of trash from a local funeral home dropped in front of the museum and reported on the news as “bag of body parts,” obnoxious visitor with City Hall connections, theft, and most recently sewage ejector malfunction. Now feel free to to let your imagination wander and fill in the stories. At the time any one of these could have turned into a disaster and in at least one instance, we were so unbelievably lucky that I don’t even like to think about it. Of course, now with the passage of time, I can see the humor (or at least the value) in almost all the bad experiences.

The other major surprise is how lonely I have felt at times as a director. Though staff, dedicated board members, family, friends, and most importantly, trusted colleagues, do offer encouragement as well as the creative solutions that may help address an issue; sometimes the only one you can confide in, is yourself. You may be the only one who knows the bad news that has to be dealt with but can’t be shared. At times you just have to forge ahead and make the decision and live with the consequences. The second-guessing can be painful and again, a burden that is generally carried alone.

Additionally, over the years there have been a few times when I took on a cause and marched at the head of the line waving the banner of moral outrage and truth (or at least my sense of it) only to discover I was marching alone. In some of these instances, I learned that it was an issue that only I cared about. As bad as that might seem, it was even worse when I realized that others did care but for any number of reasons could not afford to lead the charge or even go on record as agreeing. Not all of these crusades were successful or even well received and I have a few tire marks from being run over by the “who cares what your think based on your years of experience” bus. However, most of the issues I would take on again, even knowing the toll it took on me.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the fact that my job has provide me with numerous opportunities to learn new things: some I never imagined I would need to know, others I would rather not have, and still other have changed my perspective on the value of what others do day in and day out. Perhaps this is truer of small organizations, but the variety of things that have come my way as challenges, opportunities, and surprises has been both energizing and exhausting.

It likely comes as no surprise that while much has changed a fair number of things have stayed the same. While the base pay has gone up considerably, so has the cost of a new muffler! All kidding aside, the field is still characterized by low pay and inconsistent levels of benefits. I wish I knew what the solution is since we are all constrained by what we can earn and raise for our organizations. Of course it is about priorities and breaking the cycle, but I fear it is not as simple as some would like it to be.

Perhaps the element of the work that has changed the most is our perception of audience and community. The idea that collecting and protecting isn’t enough was at one time a fairly novel and even controversial notion. The importance of saving in order to share, sharing with the needs of our audience in mind, and sharing the responsibility for what we present with our community, are concepts that now all seem obvious. The words “conversation” and “inclusion” are now frequently used as programs and policies are discussed and developed.

The fact that to a large extent the field still values real objects, places, and experience is a victory. I know technology is here to stay, but that just means we need to make prudent decisions about how to employ its benefits to good effect, as well as how to use the compelling, common, evocative, and puzzling objects in our care effectively to spur active inquiry and community conversations.

Finally, much of what I believe and cherish about the field is very much colored by my connections to NEMA. It has served for me, and for many others, as a powerful force that draws us together to forge new paths, solve problems, share insights, and learn from one another in a region that is blessed with the advantages of proximity along with a large and varied assemblage of wonderful museums.