A Three Hour Tour

I currently serve as the President and CEO of a mid-sized science center in Reno, Nevada. It’s called the Terry Lee Wells Nevada Discovery Museum, but we’ll just call it The Discovery from this point forward because my fingers hurt after a typing the full name of the place. But keep that full name tucked away in your head as it becomes more relevant in a little bit.

I know what you’re thinking, “Reno?” Yup, that’s what everyone thinks that hasn’t been here. In fact, that’s what I was thinking when I was invited to interview for the job. I was coming from Portland, Oregon and had spent most of my life in really big museums in a really big city. So when the time came to consider leaving the Pacific Northwest it was not a decision I made lightly. My family was well established and the furthest our kids had moved at that point was four blocks. Same school, same friends, and four blocks closer to their grandparents.

While I know and accept that my work is a calling and a special privilege that still affords me the ability to pay a mortgage, I also understand that unlike other professions, the kinds of jobs I was looking for were not exactly abundant. There are only a few hundred people in the country that do what I do for a living and fewer still who give up those seats readily. Add to that some other factors that we wanted in a new place to call home and suddenly our job search got very, very narrow.

Still, Reno was not high on my list of places to move. My impression of the place was limited to a few ugly stereotypes and one funny but very unflattering TV show. I had been to Lake Tahoe, which is basically right next to Reno, but still somehow managed to skip over the “biggest little city in the world.” For a long time, the city’s reputation was built on two things: casinos and fast divorces. That’s right, if you wanted to part ways with your money or your spouse (and in many cases both) in record time, you headed to Reno. Today it is a solid mid-sized city with a booming tech industry, a tier one university, a professional sports team, and most importantly a brand-new science museum.

This brand-new science museum was not without its challenges. Like many start up efforts and probably every other museum that came before it, there were some growing pains in the first days of the museum. A rookie staff, combined with a lot of promises made to the community meant expectations were high. Executive leadership was in short supply and some difficult decisions had to be made in the first few fiscal cycles. At some point there was concern that the museum…this brand-new multi-million-dollar venture…could possibly faulter.

It was at this point that a major foundation, and the museum’s name’s sake, the Terry Lee Wells Foundation stepped in and called for a timeout. They were among some of the largest donors to the project and their generosity gave them naming rights to the museum. Pillars of the community, the trustees of the foundation were concerned the museum could fail and all would be lost. So, they gave again. This time a gift was given to help secure professional and experienced talent to lead the museum through its still early days and into the full version of itself that was promised to this rapidly changing city.

Step one, hire an executive search firm. You know the saying “go big or go home?” Well, that’s exactly what the foundation did. They hired a top shelf search firm. This is one of those firms that everyone in my industry knows and they specialize in placing nonprofit executives. When their name shows up in your in-box or on your caller ID, you answer or respond as quickly as you can because you know it’s going to be something amazing. And wouldn’t you know, one day I received a call from this firm and I dropped what I was doing…coaching a soccer practice if memory serves…so I could answer the call.

I proceeded to have a wonderful discussion with the recruiter. We’ll call him Dave because that’s what his mother named him. Dave was describing this amazing brand-new science museum. It was a mid-sized museum by every industry standard. The museum was 70,000 square feet, staff of around 50, 100,000 plus visitors a year (now more than double that, but that’s a story for another time) and a little more than $3 million in an operating budget. Great board, generous donors, young and energetic staff. On and on Dave went describing the opportunity and the amazing organization that I could possibly lead. It was smaller than what I was looking for, but if Dave from this amazing firm thought it was a good opportunity, then I thought it deserved a closer look.

We were about 35 minutes into our conversation when I realized that he hadn’t told me where the museum was located. I assumed based on his descriptions so far that we were talking somewhere in the bay area, maybe a suburb of Boston or upstate New York. Someplace that met my criteria for a place to call home. The conversation continued and finally I stopped the discussion and interrupted. “Dave,” I said, “where is this museum?” I asked casually and with some excitement. I just couldn’t wait to hear what cool trendy place I would be moving to in the near future. Dave paused and then apologized that he had failed to mention it earlier. Then he dropped the bomb, “it’s in Reno, Nevada. Do you know it?” What? While I had not yet submitted an application, every conversation with a recruiter like this is an interview. Every response, every intonation of your voice is being evaluated and assessed. Choose your words wisely.

“Oh, Reno, yeah I um…um yeah I know it. I think we were in the area not too long ago when we were visiting friends at Lake Tahoe.” Slight exaggeration there as the recent trip I was referring to was when I was 9 visiting my grandparents in San Francisco and my dad decided a day trip to the lake was in order. The most memorable part of the trip was straddling a line on some ugly casino carpet that was the supposed state line between California and Nevada. Literally this entire casino’s gimmick was that half the building was in California and half was in Nevada. At 9 years old I jumped back and forth over the line several times demonstrating my ability to be in two different states at nearly the same time. It wasn’t quite time travel, but I was on to something.

Also… how was it allowed to have a 9-year-old kid in the middle of a casino floor? My pre-pubescent brain was working double time to try and make sense of the young women clad in what I can only describe as a feather-based bikini system and elaborate head dresses delivering beverages to some very thirsty men. I do remember suddenly feeling thirsty and thinking I needed to order something to drink but my mother interrupted my anthropological studies and our vacation continued. Even on that trip, I was only Reno adjacent.

“So what do you think?” My trip down memory lane of the feather clad casino women was suddenly interrupted by Dave wanting to know my thoughts on the opportunity. “Sounds amazing, I would be thrilled at the opportunity,” was the only thing I could come up with in the moment. I didn’t want to tell Dave what I was thinking which was something closer to “isn’t that place a dump? Like Las Vegas but smaller and somehow sadder.” No, I couldn’t burn this particular recruiting bridge so I gave the only available response I could which was an enthusiastic “sure.”

Here’s what I was thinking. I would go ahead with the interviews and use this as an opportunity to practice some answers to questions I knew I would be asked for the “real jobs” I was chasing. In the process, I would blow Dave’s mind and he would realize that he had made a huge mistake and had this amazing prospect he could place in a big fat museum director job in a huge city and we would both be so pleased with the outcome. This was the plan and a damn good one at that if I don’t say so myself.

That is of course until they called my bluff. I sailed through the first two rounds of zoom style interviews. I say zoom style because in a post pandemic world, zoom is the Kleenex of our era to describe any video conferencing system. In fact, I have no idea of the exact platform that we used, but it was neither intuitive nor comfortable. I can’t imagine what it was like on their end, but mine was terrible audio, visuals that regularly froze, and once I had to dial back into the call. At one point I was answering a question that wasn’t even asked. A tin can with a long string would have been a preferable format at that point. But either I impressed them, or Dave had better talent that he was shopping at bigger museums in bigger cities, and he sacrificed me to this search. Whatever the case, he called me after the second round.

“That was great! They really like you and would like to invite you to come to Reno for a few days of in-person interviews.” Damn! That’s all I could think of at that point. It was all fine a good to spend a few hours on a terrible virtual connection, but now I had to get on a plane and go to this city that I had no intention of moving to in order to interview for a job I didn’t want. Cool Dave, really knocked this one out of the park for me, sure, let’s go to Reno.

Let’s pause here for just a minute. I want to point out the absurdity of my arrogance. I’ve lived in Reno for 11 years at the time of writing this piece. I built a house here. My kids went to that tier one university. And I absolutely LOVE The Discovery. Reno is one of the fastest growing and best cities in America to call home. Clearly the moral of this story so far is the absolute diamond in the rough that is Reno. I want to point all this out because the first time I shared a version of this story with a board member and a donor present I thought it was endearing and demonstrated my personal growth and falling in love with this community. What others heard was me taking an absolute dump on their home. People from Nevada are very proud of their home (as they/we should be). Still, let me be very clear, the story has a happy ending and Reno is amazing! You need to come check it out. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programing.

So off I go to dumpy Vegas Jr. in the high desert. Great. My flight arrived at 10:45 pm in a winter month so all I saw was the “strip” from the airplane and it was exactly what I thought it would look like, bright lights, straight roads, and NOTHING else. Grabbed the shuttle to the hotel which was…wait for it…a casino. Cool. Immediately I hated it here and wanted to go home, but I was committed and had practice interviews in the morning so let’s get on with this. I walked through the front doors and immediately my senses were overwhelmed with bright lights, loud noises, and the smell of stale cigarettes. There were no feather-based bikini systems to be found, but there were similarly scarce employee uniforms floating around keeping guests hydrated.

I should also admit here that I am passionately against gambling. No casinos, no scratch-it lotto tickets, no stupid bets with the kids I know I can win. This is not based on moral principles or religious tendencies. I just really hate parting with my money for “entertainment purposes only.” Now I was standing at the check-in desk at the hotel and casino in a town I had pre-judged and didn’t want to be in, so things were not looking good for the morning.

After a restless night I awoke to iron my shirt, take the lint roller to my suit, and feast on the continental breakfast before meeting up with Dave and heading to the museum for a day of interrogations. I will say this for my hotel/casino that was housing me, they know how to feed people. Continental breakfast usually means a basket of bruised bananas, a cellophane wrapped muffin, and if you’re lucky a cereal bar complete with generic versions of your favorite brands. Not so in the hotel/casino world. Maybe, just maybe, there was more to this place than I had considered. Never mind though, after today I would be on to bigger things.

The museum was a very short drive from our hotel. Everything is close in Reno. Honestly, I’m not sure why we even drove. When we arrived at the museum, we parked in the back so we could enter through the administrative offices. I thought it was funny that the street on the back side of the museum is called Sinclair Street. It was funny because that also happens to be my last name. Remembering that every time I opened my mouth I was being interviewed, I decided to showcase my sense of humor. When we got out of the car I mentioned to Dave and the woman who drove us, who also was serving as the chair of the search committee of the board, that clearly they had already made their decision, and I was flattered. Confused looks. I directed their attention to the street sign and explained the punch line of my joke which of course is never a good sign. Neither of them laughed. Neither of them smiled. I thought we should all get in the car and go back to the airport because this interview was clearly over, but we all pretended I hadn’t just said what I said and moved on with our day.

First interview was with a very serious group of board members. These were folks who were instrumental in standing up the museum. They had joined before the museum opened. They had raised millions of dollars for this project. And they were the ones being blamed for the museums current challenges and were desperate to find someone to hand off their operational woes to so they didn’t have to deal with it anymore. BUT…they weren’t going to hire the first guy Dave showed up with. They had serious questions and you Mr. Sinclair Street better have some good answers.

The good news is that I had several good answers. I had a carefully written play book that I had developed over the past 20 years working in some of the nation’s best museums. I was ready for their questions and eager to go through the thought exercise of how we would approach various challenges and scenarios. I was really enjoying myself and being the biggest horse’s ass in the process because I had nothing to lose. You can’t lose a job you didn’t want. But then somewhere in the middle of the second hour of this round of interrogations something happened. Something I wasn’t prepared for. Something that ultimately would change the course of my life. I started to want this job.

I was beginning to see all the opportunities that Dave had been trying to tell me about. I was realizing that this was a community in the middle of a major transformation and here was this brand-new cultural icon that could shape and influence this transformation for decades to come. This opportunity didn’t exist in the bay area, it couldn’t be found in a suburb of Boston, and it was too cold in upstate New York to even exist. This was something very special and a once in a career kind of moment. My cavalier approach had gotten me this far, but if I wasn’t careful it was going to cost me the opportunity. All of this was happening in my brain as I was rattling off answers and once again, I found myself answering a question that had not been asked. Only I couldn’t blame a bad connection this time. Had I blown it?

The bell rung and round one was over. I had fifteen minutes to gather my thoughts and move to the next meeting room. My interrogators for this round were a carefully curated group of staff who would have the privilege or horror, depending on your perspective, of reporting to me should I be offered the job. For this round I had no minder, no Dave or search committee member to mother hen the panel and report back. It was just me and the staff. They had their carefully selected set of questions they were instructed to ask each candidate in the interest of fairness and consistency. Without a lifeguard in the room, I was able to quickly derail their line of questioning and we had a lovely and candid discussion about the museum, their hopes and dreams, and what they wanted in a leader. It was one of the best interview experiences of my career.

They were young and dumb. Hey now, I don’t mean dumb in a pejorative way. They were all wicked smart with a lot of experience, knowledge and passion. What I mean is that only one of them had worked in a nonprofit before, and none of them had worked in a museum. And yet, here they were doing it! That’s so beautifully dumb! OK, I get the sense you’re not crazy about me calling these guys dumb so let’s move on. My entire career I was surrounded by people with way more industry knowledge and experience than me. My assumption was that you had to have all of this expertise under the roof to successfully run a museum…and yet, here they were and they were doing it with incredible results. Maybe I was the dumb one. And I was in bad shape because I really wanted to work with these people. I wanted this job BAD which is the last place you want to be in an interview process like this. I wanted them to want me, not the other way around. What now?

This panel could have gone on for hours, but eventually Dave did interrupt and share that it was time for my next round. Ding, ding, the bell rang and off to my corner I went to spit the blood out of my mouth, stem the swelling, and squeeze in a call to my wife. She wanted to know how things were going. While she had actually been to Reno, it was also in the context of a family road trip, and she did not share the same affinity for my time travel theories as it pertained to the state line, nor did she hold the same memories of the feather-based bikini uniform systems. However, she had a vested stake in the job because if I moved, she moved and our kids were coming too. I gave her the bad news. This was possibly the one. I could see the potential. I could see the endless opportunities for the museum. I could feel the excitement of the assembled staff and board. I wanted this one.

Our call was interrupted by Dave. The bell had rung again and it was time for the next round. I told my wife I would call again that evening with the full rundown and we ended the call with a heartfelt “good luck.” At this point Dave directed me to the front of the museum and he pushed open the front doors and we began to walk to the next panel interview. I was pleased to be walking instead of driving, but I was also confused. We were walking to another museum two blocks away. While I will protect their identity, I will say it’s the kind of museum where you don’t touch anything and look at very expensive things hanging on the wall. Also, they have a very lovely dining area and that’s where we were headed. My next panel discussion would be over lunch and with the trustees of the Terry Lee Wells Foundation.

Upon entrance to this museum, I was struck by a few thoughts. The first was confusion. Which museum had I applied to? The museum I was now standing in was a very modern building, elegant, and very quiet. In a word…fancy. It’s a building that would be at home in downtown San Francisco or Seattle. The second thought was lunch. I was still full from the gorging I did at the continental breakfast but my grandmother’s voice was in my head and I knew I would both need to order lunch and eat what was served, so make a smart choice. Also…you’re being judged. Finally, there was the panel itself. I was seated at the table and introduced to the five trustees of the foundation. Ring, ring, round three.

At this stage of my search process I was deep into several interviews at different museums in different cities across the country. This was not my first lunch meeting interview with museum donors and stake holders. I had done my homework and I knew the players. On the surface, one could be lured into thinking they were having lunch with five grandmothers. In fact, most of them were grandmothers. All sweet and nice, each one welcoming and working hard to make me feel comfortable and welcome in their community. It was a nice reprieve. Lunch was ordered and the polite chit chat of getting to know one another began. Lunch arrived at our table in surprising speed and I stared at my plate. A wedge Cesar salad. Literally a head of iceberg lettuce sliced into four wedged quarters dripping in salad dressing. How the hell was I supposed to eat this, while answering their questions and not look like an idiot in the process? Take me to the airport, we’re done here.

No sooner had the plates hit the table that the interview really began. The gloves were off and the first trustee hit me with one of the most challenging questions of the process so far. I was prepared with an answer, and the baton was passed to the next trustee. She too was ready for the volley and hit me with another challenging and multi-pronged question. This back and forth went on for the next two trustees. Each with a tough question and a clear understanding of the stakes of the game. I had researched the trustees ahead of time and knew the sweet grandmother facade was just a device to bait me into a sense of comfort before I was slaughtered at the lunch table. They were beyond smart, they were brilliant. No one was slipping passed their defenses and if I did not impress, this opportunity would vanish in front of my eyes.

Then the baton was passed to the fifth and final trustee. For 45 minutes I had been staring at her. I knew I knew her, but I could not place from where. I also knew that at one point I had held strong romantic feelings for her, but again, couldn’t place how or why. This was made all the more challenging for my brain as she was at a stage of life where she definitely carried an AARP card, and it was well used. Still…there was something about her.

She took a sip of her iced tea, cleared her throat and then asked me the following question, “you’re the kid from Oregon, right?” “Yes, I am,” she had me dead to rights. “They have legalized pot there don’t they?” Oh…my…God. Was this a serious question? Of course, it was, she was on the panel, I was the candidate, answer the damn question. Only, how do you answer? Not too enthusiastically, but informed. Not positively, but not negative either. Damn. “Yes, they do.” Clear, concise, and accurate. I delivered my response with the best poker voice (assuming that’s a thing) I had. Her questions continued along this track and there was no HR manager within 50 miles that was going to tell her that she couldn’t ask me this or that. Dave just sat there enjoying his wedge salad eating it like a pro. Bro…help me out here. But no, Dave was mastering that wedge.

Ring, ring, round three had ended. Polite thank-you’s were exchanged as we left the table and headed back to the museum that I had actually applied to. Upon my return to the museum, there was an unexpected lull in the schedule and I was parked at an unused desk for about an hour until the next panel of inquisitors arrived. One of the senior members of the staff that I had met with earlier in the day approached me and asked, “how was lunch with Mary Ann?” In fairness to me, I had been running a pretty full schedule ever since the wheels touched down in Reno. I had met several dozen people at this point in the process and I was starting to feel a little punch drunk. All that said, I was quite certain I had not met anyone by the name Mary Ann.

“I didn’t have lunch with Mary Ann, I met with the Terry Lee Wells Trustees.” That was my response because it was true, and to the best of my knowledge, accurate. “Yeah you did,” was her response. I wasn’t interested in an argument, but I was at an impasse. I knew I hadn’t met with a Mary Ann but this potential future employee of mine was insistenting that I had.  She sensed the confusion and took mercy on me and reframed the question. “How was Dawn?” was her second draft version of the question. Good news for me, as I had met with a Dawn. She was the fifth and final trustee who hit me with the pot question and so many other off the table questions during lunch.

“She was great! She asked some really good questions.” In all honesty I actually think that was true, even if some of them were illegal or inappropriate. “But why did you call her Mary Ann?” I was worried that I had missed something or failed to catch the correct name of someone I had met. “Because that was her character, she’s an actress. Didn’t you look her up before your meeting?” Ok, first off lady, you’re talking to your potential future boss so maybe lay off the attitude and tone. Second, yeah, I did my homework…mostly. Her’s was the last profile I looked at and I found it surprisingly sparse. Turns out that was by design.

Mary Ann, or more accurately Dawn Wells, was indeed an actress. While her current list of on-screen appearances had dwindled by this time, she is most famous for her role portraying the character of Mary Ann on the 1960’s classic Gilligan’s Island. The absolute hammer gong in my head was going crazy. Ding, ding, ding. I suddenly realized that the reason I was so interested in this woman sitting across from me at lunch was because I had decided decades ago sitting in front of my TV watching syndicated reruns of Gilligan’s Island that I was going to grow up and marry Mary Ann! Most guys fell for the stranded movie star named Ginger who all the fellas on the island had the hots for, but pig-tailed shorts wearing Mary Ann was more my cup of tea. And then it hit me that I missed out on the fan boy moment. If I didn’t get this job what were the chances of ever meeting my boyhood crush again? Now I really needed this job!

Round four and five happened that afternoon and to be honest, it’s all a blur. Clearly I did well enough because…spoiler…I’ve been leading this amazing organization for more than a decade. I called my wife later that evening from the hotel/casino after another amazing meal (they really know how to feed people in these places). I shared my story of meeting Dawn Wells and how I knew who she was but didn’t know at the same time. She couldn’t believe I failed to connect the puzzle pieces in my head. Thanks, that was the encouragement I was looking for. I also shared all the amazing things I had seen and learned about Reno. For example, that stupidly funny TV show about some incompetent Sherriff’s deputies was actually filmed in Sacramento and not Reno. Why did this matter she asked? It didn’t at all, but it was a fact I immediately felt the need to share with the entire world.

The next day was full of informal coffee meetings, another lunch, a driving tour of the community, and then a trip back to the airport. Flying out of Reno at night is the exact same view as flying in at night, brightly lit casinos, straight roads, mountains. I arrived home tired but excited. It was difficult to say how things went given all the people, all the questions, and the various iterations of my answers that I had been giving to interviewers over the past three months. But I was sad. The next day I began to dissect everything and one glaring lesson came to my mind. I had failed to do my homework.

The obvious miss was Dawn Wells. My first love and she was sitting right there. I thought I had researched everyone I was meeting. And yet a quick google search would have given me immediate and rewarding results. If I failed to catch this easy and obvious data point, what else was I missing? The answer was a lot! Reno took my breath away. I let myself fall into some stereotypes and I almost lost this amazing opportunity before I had it. Also, it was a long way from being a given. If this was something I wanted I was going to have to work for it!

I was not a great student until what felt like way too late in my education. In high school my guidance counselor was more concerned about getting me across the stage at graduation than getting me into a university. So, the irony is not lost on me when I say that doing one’s homework pays huge dividends. Lifelong learners need to be exactly that, someone who continues to learn and grow. I had entered this search process with a professional confidence and knowledge set that I believed could get me any of the jobs I was pursuing and that I would have my pick of places to call home. Turns out the best thing that ever happened to my career started as the last thing I wanted to happen. So, do your homework, keep your mind open to all opportunities, and never judge a city by its casinos.

As I have shared throughout this story, it has a happy ending. At the time of this writing, I am celebrating 11 years of service to my community and museum. It still feels new and exciting. Dawn Wells became a dear friend and a huge booster of myself and the museum. Turns out, she was a huge science nerd. She was actually headed to medical school and had made a deal with her father. She was going to spend her summer between graduating college before starting medical school down in Hollywood. She had done some theater in college and loved it. She thought it would be fun to do a commercial or maybe get cast in a play. Her second week in town she was cast in the role of Mary Ann and the rest as they say is history.

And yes, after establishing a friendship with Dawn I eventually worked up the courage to tell her this story. She laughed, leaned in and gave me a gentle peck on the cheek, and my knees went weak. I then ruined the moment when I asked if she knew Linda Carter. Dawn passed away a few years ago leaving a hole in my heart and an emptiness in her hometown. But her legacy and so many others lives on at The Discovery.