Marise McDermott – 5/28/11
President and CEO, Witte Museum
BIO: Marise McDermott has 26 years experience in cultural arts, with special emphasis on public access to humanities, art, and science scholarship. McDermott’s recent work as President and CEO of the Witte Museum includes museum campus expansion and project innovation to enhance visitor engagement and revenue streams; museums, including the Witte Museum’s collaborative A Wild and Vivid Land: Stories of South Texas (2006); World of Water project (2005); and the H-E-B Body Adventure (2011). McDermott served as founding Chair of Luminaria: Arts Night in San Antonio and also serves on the San Antonio River Oversight Committee, Midtown/Brackenridge TIRZ Board and the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Commission.
Professional:
President and CEO, Witte Museum, 2004-current. Responsible for premiere 85-year-old museum of History, Science and Culture. The Witte Museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums, with more than 100,000 square-feet and about 180,000 artifacts. Currently engaged in major campus expansion and capital campaign, working Witte Museum Trustee committees on building, collections and fundraising. Primary focus is on successful execution of strategic plan and working goals re: Campus expansion, South Texas Heritage, Water Resources and Science program innovation, Collections planning, Program innovation, fiscal stability, with 38 members of the Board of Trustees, 90-plus full and part-time staff and 50 Advisory Board members. The Witte Museum sustains balanced budgets, opened the new Brackenridge Park Parking Facility under museum management (2009), purchased property to house the Witte Research Center, is in the process of building the South Texas Heritage Center and transforming the H-E-B Science Treehouse, and has raised more than $20 million in three years.
Vice President, Research and Planning, Witte Museum, 2002-4. Responsible for leading and coordinating development of new programs and organizational initiatives (American and Texas Originals summer 2003); Project Director for Water Resource Center (target 2005-7), South Texas Heritage Center (target 2007); Collections and other major Witte strategic initiatives.
Executive Director, The History Center, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (Also Acting Director/Chief Curator) 1998-2002
- Supervise all aspects of The History Center, including FY budget, team management and implementation of exhibits, education programs and collections procedures.
- Project Director, TimeQuest, virtual 3-D real-time simulation environment of Cedar Rapids 100 years ago, a collaborative corridor project with the University of Iowa and Digital Artefacts. Headed project team of more than 50, including curators, humanities scholars, researchers, computer scientists, volunteers, engineers, designers, fabricators, and student interns. This project was debuted at the Smithsonian summer of 2002.
- Project Director for the core exhibits gallery, “Living Along the Tributaries”; heading a team of curators, exhibit designers, fabricators, and volunteers.
- Designed, implemented (with education team) interactive educational programming
Director, Humanities and Science Center, The Witte Museum, 1989-96.
- Supervised History and Anthropology curators, Curatorial Archivist/Researcher, Elderhostel Coordinator, Education associate, part- time scholar/instructors, clerical staff and volunteers.
- Designed and implemented humanities exhibits, lectures, presentations; colloquia/symposia: community and corporate-linked education programs.
- Project Director (or co-project director) of numerous National Endowment for the Humanities and Texas Committee for the Humanities sponsored exhibits and presentations, including a colloquium, CD-Rom and Internet site on Cabeza de Vaca and city-wide collaboration on “Moral Courage in Post-Holocaust Times.”
Editor, “The Texas Experience,” a series of 52 articles published in Texas newspapers each week of the Texas Sesquicentennial year (1986) for the Associated Press and Texas Committee for the Humanities.
Editor, The Texas Humanist: Ideas, History and Culture, 1983-1986 (Also known as The Texas Journal), statewide magazine.
- Thematic award-winning bimonthly magazine (publications for the Texas Committee for the Humanities) to provide public access to humanities scholarship. Included photography/art illustrations; book and cultural reviews.
City/State/ Editor, Austin American Statesman, 1980-82.
Editorial Page Editor, San Angelo Standard-Times, 1978-80.
Education:
- Southwest Texas State University, M.F.A., 1996. Creative thesis: Museum Pieces, collection focusing on and inspired by the collections of the Witte Museum.
- Queens College, City University of New York, B.A., 1977.
Boards and Volunteer:
- Vice Chair, San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau, current.
- Mayor Appointed Chair, “Luminaria: Arts Night in San Antonio” (2008, Co-Chair, 2009)
- Tourism Council, Board Member, current
- San Antonio River Oversight Committee, current
- Midtown TIRZ Board, Current
Professional Associations:
- American Association of Museums
- Texas Association of Museums
Personal:
- Full legal name: Marise McDermott-Grizzard
- Married to Hollis Q. Grizzard, since 1980.
- Two children: James, 28, and Julia, 25.
Hosts,
Bjorn Dybdahl of Bjorn's
John Thurman of Heart of Texas Realty
Scott Woolfolk of Documation
Sponsors
