May 5, 2014
New director, exhibits coming to Children's Museum
BY SARAH ELMS selms@record-eagle.com
Traverse City Record-Eagle
---- — TRAVERSE CITY — The Great Lakes Children’s Museum hired a new
executive director to replace John Noonan, who resigned in January after
leading the museum for 11 years.
Michael Long takes the reins at the museum on May 8.
Long
recently left his executive director position at Jefferson County
Administrators Association in Colorado, a professional membership
association for leaders in Jefferson County Public Schools.
Long
helped found the Northwoods Children’s Museum in Wisconsin where he
served as its executive director for eight years before his move to
Colorado.
Great Lakes Children’s Museum Board of Directors
president Matt Missias said Long is the “absolute right fit for the
position.” His museum experience and education background set him apart
from the other 24 applicants.
“Not only could he run a museum, not
only could he do the job that needed to be done, but he also had the
perspective of how to reach our target demographic of children,” Missias
said.
Board members interviewed 10 candidates and narrowed the
pool to three top candidates before they made their decision. Missias
said Long has a strong vision of how he wants to see the museum grow and
supports the team atmosphere board members were looking for.
“I don’t know how else to put it. He gets it,” Missias said. “He understands how to run and grow an organization like ours.”
Long
said children’s museums give kids the chance to understand their
environment in a fun way, and he’s looking forward to figuring out what
makes Traverse City tick.
“I’m interested in finding out what’s
unique about Traverse City and what kids need to learn to understand the
world around them,” he said.
His goal is to make sure that
whatever exhibits or events the museum hosts continue to be relevant and
engaging for adults and kids, he said. The museum is geared toward
children ages 2 to 6, and Long wants to gradually expand that range to
include children up to 10 years old.
Hiring a new executive
director is one of many changes planned for the museum in the coming
months. Three new water-themed exhibits are in the works.
“It’s time to start looking at ways to refresh the space and give kids and families new things to play with,” Missias said.
The
first is called Building Bridges and will include a bridge that
children can build themselves and walk across as well as a suspension
bridge modeled after the Mackinac Bridge. The second new exhibit will
focus on sail boats.
“We’re putting in a sail table with different
model boats so kids can attach different size sails to the boats and
see how they can be manipulated by the wind,” Missias said.
Guardians
of the Great Lakes is the third and largest of the new exhibits. It
will include information about the Coast Guard and Traverse City and
will feature a model helicopter with authentic sounds and lights that
children can play in. It also will include a wave tank to teach children
about how waves affect the environment.
“What we’re looking at is
how the geography of the region is protected and served by
organizations like the Coast Guard,” Missias said.
Museum
officials hope to have the first phase of Building Bridges installed in
the next few weeks and the sail table set up during the summer.
Guardians of the Great Lakes could be ready to go as early as September
or as late as March 2015, depending on the designer chosen for the
build.
