Sue the dinosaur has been with us only six months, but already the charismatic T-rex is approaching icon status in Chicago.
“Jurassic Park” did huge business at the box office, but the suspenseful story of how Sue got to the Field Museum of Natural History might make for a better story.
The $8.3 million transaction was masterminded by one man, Field CEO John McCarter, who, though he has only been on the job since 1996, has used a mix of creativity, business skill, hunch and chutzpah to vault the Field into first place among Chicago museums.
McCarter undertook the 1997 acquisition of Sue after an inspection of the fossil by his own museum experts. He moved quickly to organize a delicate consortium of resources from both the private and public sectors to pull off the unprecedented deal, which featured dramatic, secret bidding at a New York auction house.
What gets lost in a retelling of the tale is this: At the time McCarter made the decisive moves, committing the Field to a costly gamble, he had been CEO for less than a year. What’s more, it was a job for which he had no experience.
Nevertheless, his boldness has completely changes the way we look at museums.
“If you don’t grow up in an institution you’ve got to be careful you don’t overreach your capabilities,” he said, as if reminding himself. “I consult with our scientists on every scientific matter before making decisions. Almost every experience I had before has come into play here. It’s been exhilarating and surprising and amazing here, but I’ve never felt intimidated.”
The Field hit the 2 million visitor mark for the year in October, a figure that hasn’t been seen at the museum since the King Tut year of 1977. But it was a goal set by McCarter almost from Day One. The Field is certain to be the most visited Chicago museum in 2000, an honor that has gone to the John G. Shedd Aquarium the last four years and either the Museum of Science and Industry or Art Institute of Chicago for the remainder of the 1990s.
The investment in Sue figures to pay dividends well into the new century, but the dinosaur is just one of a number of attractions that have energized Field attendance on McCarter’s watch.
Perhaps as telling about the 62-year-old CEO’s leadership style is how he acquired another top draw this year — the Dead Sea Scrolls.
In this case, the peripatetic McCarter was in Scotland scouting the Edinburgh Festival for ideas when he saw a bus with a sign advertising the scrolls in a Glasgow museum. Intrigued, he detoured to that Scottish city, saw large crowds lining up, and, after consulting with locals responsible for bringing them there, told his staff: “We’ve got to have them.”
The wheels were soon set in motion for the scrolls to come to the Field — the bulk of them being shown in the U.S. for the first time. Just as impressive was the ecumenical consortium of sponsors organized by the museum, which included the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese, Chicago’s Fourth Presbyterian Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Israeli consulate.
“When one museum does well, it’s great for all the other museums,” said Charles Katzenmeyer, an associate director with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. “The Field is one of the great natural history museums of the world and its scientists are at the core of important things. From our standpoint, we couldn’t be happier at the success the Field is having.
“John McCarter understands the audience of the museum and that he sets the direction for what it can do,” he added. “He’s a real dynamo when it comes to fresh ideas for great institutions. He understands how to formulate an idea, articulate it, enforce it and fund it.”
In a basement corridor leading to his office, the Field CEO need only glance upward for a reminder of what a challenge it is to maintain the museum’s competitiveness. A long stretch of ceiling tiles has been peeled away by workers, exposing a maze of wires and pipes being replaced in the ongoing attempt to keep the nearly 80-year-old building up to speed.
The Field’s older exhibit halls are “embarrassingly” out of date, McCarter said. The manner in which the extensive Native American collection is physically displayed is “straight out of the 1920s.” The key will be adding more room and, to that end, his plan is to burrow under the Field’s southeast terrace to create 170,000 square feet of added, climate-controlled storage space.
The new plan for neighboring Soldier Field is uppermost on everyone’s mind at the museum. The proposed parking garage, new access roads and green space are seen as a boon, but not before a long period of disruptive construction.
For the past two years, McCarter and Fay Levin, Field’s government-relations specialist who came to the job in 1997 from a Chicago law firm, have spent considerable energy lobbying Illinois legislators, peering over the shoulders of architects and consulting other insiders on stadium plans.
“It seems like we’ve been spending almost 90 percent of our time on this,” said Levin, who has made numerous trips to Springfield on the matter. “Our goal is to protect the museum’s interests the best we can.”
The Field CEO has a $55 million operating budget and keeps abreast of everything at his regular docket meetings — efficient gatherings that sometimes require only an hour. There are a dozen people in McCarter’s cabinet and about half of the appointments he has made came from a variety of non-museum areas. For example, museum counsel Felisia Wesson was with Whirlpool Corp. and Cathleen Costello, vice president for museum affairs, was with American Express. Gary Feinman, head of the anthropology department and point person representing the Field’s academic side, taught at the University of Wisconsin.
“It’s like we’re driving down these parallel roads,” McCarter said, “and I have to make sure resources get allocated in a way that one road doesn’t get more than its share. Not being a scientist, I’m sure I defer more to the academic side when it comes to making decisions, but that doesn’t mean I don’t try to stay on top of things.”
There are over 75 PhDs working on projects, and McCarter’s eyes never fail to light up discussing the far-flung work of the scientists who have made the Field a premier research center. Conservation of natural resources is “hot” these days in the Field’s plans because, after all, it is difficult to find fossils when they’re under shopping malls.
The Field recently hosted for the first time the annual meeting for Conservation International, an event that added a touch of celebrity with actor Harrison Ford dining in Sue’s shadow. Especially exciting to McCarter is the work being done by the Rapid Assessment Program, coordinated by the institution’s Debra Moskovits.
RAP operates as an ecological “swat squad” of scientists who sweep into typically remote spots to make quick determinations on the feasibility of saving endangered areas or species. The group already has had an impact on a 5-million-acre nature park in Bolivia. Last year, in what proved to be an 11th-hour rescue, the team temporarily halted the felling of important hardwood trees by a timber company in a Peruvian jungle.
Last month, RAP was in Cuba to explore creating a preserved wilderness. The scientists want conservation programs already in place there before the expected rush by outside developers when, and if, the island’s political gates are lifted.
“The other day,” McCarter said, “an advertisement came across my desk for my final approval and it said, `McCarter sends curators around the world.’ Well, that copywriter had to make some changes. That ad never saw the light of day.
“Where our scientists go and what they do, I certainly don’t tell them. I just try to keep up with them. Every day I learn something here. To me, that’s exciting.”
McCarter came to the Field Museum after two stints with the consulting firm Booz Allen & Hamilton Inc., where it was his job to implement ideas and strategies for an international list of clients that included businesses, universities and governments.
He spent the 13 years in between with DeKalb Corp., rising to the presidency of the giant agricultural firm, and served on well-connected boards at the University of Chicago and WTTW-Ch. 11, where he ushered in the station’s move to airing commercial messages.
“A large science or natural history museum really needs someone to run it who knows how to attract people, both around him or her and into the museum itself,” said Toni Smith, an executive recruiter for Spencer Stuart, who conducted the search for McCarter and has done similar work for most of Chicago’s major museums.
“If you’re looking for someone from a similar institution, it’s hard. Most of Chicago’s museums are either No. 1 or No. 2 in their field and that limits everything. You’re looking for a high degree of sophistication. What we didn’t know about John was that he had a passion for science.”
McCarter’s 1996 move to the Field and the $250,000-per-year leadership position — which surely represented a pay cut at an age when most top executives are massaging retirement packages — was foreshadowed by his early days in state government, according to former associates.
In 1969, as a former White House Fellow under President Lyndon Johnson, and only a few years removed from an MBA at Harvard, McCarter answered newly elected Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie’s call to clean up Springfield by becoming the Republican head of state’s budget director at age 31.
“He created that office and made it professionally run,” said Paula Wolff, former Governors State University president and another of the reformers joining Ogilvie. “Before John, the budget was literally drawn up on the backs of envelopes and once every two years, instead of annually, at that.
“Ever since I’ve known him he’s wanted to know something about everything,” added Wolff. “He’s always been focused on the quality of people he surrounds himself with, too, only now I guess you’d say he’s also interested in the quality of dinosaurs around him too.”
With Ogilvie, McCarter also helped tackle unglamorous, detailed issues such as the successful rewriting of the Illinois Constitution and set the state’s pioneering environmental protection laws into motion.
Ogilvie’s failure to get re-elected after instituting Illinois’ first state-income tax, a necessary but very unpopular measure, ended those halcyon days and McCarter’s return to the private sector.
When he was named Field CEO, Lester Munson, a Chicago-based legal-affairs journalist whohas known McCarter since their student days together at Princeton, had this reaction: “I thought John was so right for that job that I probably heard it wrong.”
One recent cold and rainy November day, McCarter, jacket off, tie loosened and peering down the end of his nose through glasses, spent most of the afternoon poring over reports in a stuffy, sleep-inducing Chicago Public Schools conference room.
This was a monthly steering committee meeting for MAPS (Museums And Public Schools), a fledgling initiative to better channel into area schools the resources of the nine museums that sit on Chicago Park District property. The initiative is also ground zero in the bureaucratic wars; it attempts to meld arcane, rigidly controlled institutional processes with new, innovative ideas.
It isn’t pretty. As committee member Jacqueline Atkins, who’s executive director of Museums in The Park, an organization representing the nine Chicago park-linked museums, said after this latest round in the trenches, “Details can kill you.”
With no questions asked, McCarter, one of the few actual museum CEOs present, could have delegated his institution’s presence to an underling, but this is a project that’s become a personal mission.
“One night (CPS Board President) Gery Chico and I were at this event when we really started to discuss in earnest just how the schools could use our museums in a better way than the usual class trips for a day,” McCarter explained. “We’ve got these world-class resources right at their doorsteps that are under-utilized.
“Well, there was a bottle of wine there and, before you knew it, a few hours had passed and we had all these details laid out. That was the easy part, of course.”
On this day, the meeting saw the intrepid MAPS committee plow through mind-numbing data, discussing strategic plans, the writing of curriculums, Springfield legislation aimed at securing funding and Web-site development. Finally, as the two-hour proceedings drew to a close, up popped a “fun” topic: where to hold a year-end reception next spring expected to draw 600 people.
McCarter, his museum enjoying its banner year, had a definite idea. Turning to Carlos Tortolero, executive director of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Pilsen, the Field CEO suggested the museum would be a perfect location. It would be an opportunity to show off that organization’s new $1 million wing that opens next April.
The proposal was enthusiastically adopted. No one thought for a second about McCarter not nominating his own museum for the celebration.
“John’s always got ideas,” Atkins said. “At first, we didn’t always know what to think of them when we first started meeting, but we’ve learned they’re always good ideas.”
WHO HEADS THE OTHER MAJOR CHICAGO MUSEUMS? A BRIEF GUIDE
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
CEO: Joseph E. Shacter
Just named the museum’s first permanent leader, replacing an interim chief. Comes from the Museum of Science and Industry, where he worked for eight years directing $45 million in exhibit projects, including “Take Flight” and “Titanic.” Oversaw construction of the new MSI parking garage, useful because the new $31.2 million nature museum has been plunked down in the congested Lincoln Park area. Faces a battle carving out a following, but says his first priority is to “enrich the visitor’s experience.” Prior to museum work was an analyst with United Airlines and a television reporter in Arkansas.
Museum of Science and Industry
CEO: David Mosena
Appointed head of the museum in 1997, bringing a political background to the job as Mayor Richard M. Daley’s former chief of staff as well as city planning commissioner, aviation commissioner and president of the CTA. Prior to City Hall, was director of research for the American Planning Association. Has a master’s degree in city planning from the University of Tennessee. The hugely successful — and commercial — “Titanic” exhibit this year will keep the MSI in its traditional spot near the top in attendance among the city’s major museums.
John G. Shedd Aquarium
CEO: Ted Beattie
Became head of the aquarium in 1994 after stint as boss of the zoological parks in Knoxville, Tenn., and Ft. Worth, and six years as associate director of Brookfield Zoo. He has degrees in zoology and business from Ohio State University and recently was elected president of the prestigious American Zoo and Aquarium Association. The dynamic Shedd has made exciting, recent additions under Beattie, including the “Amazon Rising: Seasons of the River” exhibition. The aquarium was the city’s most visited cultural attraction from 1996-1999. The institution continues to undergo major expansion, with another permanent exhibit featuring the Philippines scheduled to open in 2002.
Adler Planetarium
CEO: Paul Knappenberger
A scientist with a doctorate in astronomy, he was director of the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond for 18 years before taking over the Adler in 1991. He has taught astronomy at five universities. The world-class planetarium has undergone a magnificent $40 million renovation under his helm and expanded its educational outreach, but exhibits continue to fail to catch the public’s attention with attendance lagging significantly behind the city’s other major museums, despite its upgraded facilities.
Museum of Contemporary Art
CEO: Robert Fitzpatrick
He was appointed MCA head in 1998 after serving as dean of Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Prior to that he worked for an international consulting firm in Paris and served as president of EuroDisney for six years. He also has been a vice president of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, a dean at Johns Hopkins University and once served as an elected member of the Baltimore city council. The MCA, one of the nation’s largest facilities devoted to the “art of our time,” moved into its spacious new Streeterville home two years before Fitzpatrick arrived, and membership has been growing.
Art Institute of Chicago
CEO: James N. Wood
He is the longest-serving head of a major Chicago museum, having been appointed president of the prestigious art museum in 1980. His entire career has been in this field. He was a curator or director of art museums in St. Louis, Buffalo and New York City before coming to Chicago. He’s also served in numerous leadership roles with national cultural associations. The Art Institute is a powerful player in the museum world. Its spectacular Monet exhibit in 1995, which boosted attendance to more than 2.2 million for the year, received international acclaim, and attendance is consistently among the museum leaders here.
Chicago Historical Society Museum
CEO: Lonnie G. Bunch
He will become president of the society and head of the museum in January, replacing Douglas Greenberg, who resigned last summer. He has a strong museum portfolio, serving as associate director for curatorial affairs at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. He has been with the Smithsonian for 12 years and prior to that worked at the California Afro-American Museum in Los Angeles. He has also been a consultant with the History Channel and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He arrives at a good time. The Chicago museum just completed a major capital campaign and, with the help of a Norman Rockwell exhibit, is enjoying a record-breaking year for visitors.
