Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 1, 1992 TAG: 9202010296
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
ROANOKE MUSEUM CHIEF QUITTING
The executive director of the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke says state funding cuts contributed to his decision to resign.The state eliminated its annual $112,000 contribution to the museum in July, Stan Brosky said. That was nearly one-third of the museum's annual budget.
Last year, before the cuts, the budget was projected at $324,000 but came in at about $216,000, Brosky said. Reserves were used to cover a cash shortfall of about $43,000. For fiscal 1992, the museum's budget probably will be between $160,000 and $170,000, he said.
"We went through a very difficult time here in having to retrench," said Brosky, 43. One full-time and four part-time positions were eliminated, and another full-time slot was converted to three-quarter time. Besides himself, the museum now employs one full-timer and two three-quarter timers.
Brosky will take a job as executive director of Vermilionville, a historical attraction portraying Cajun and Creole folklife, in Lafayette, La.
He compared the downsizing at the Transportation Museum to "shifting gears without using a clutch."
He came to the museum in June 1989. Before his arrival, the transportation museum had traveled a rough road marked by the flood of 1985, which precipitated its move from Wasena Park to the Norfolk and Western Railway freight station on Norfolk Avenue downtown. It had a huge debt from flood-related expenses.
There also was internal strife among board members, affiliated groups like the Roanoke chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and previous executive directors.
Brosky quickly began to build bridges.
"His strong suit has certainly been in his people skills," said Rob Glenn, a member of the museum's executive board. "Folks from all over the community have really applauded his ability to . . . position the museum more favorably in the community."
Brosky said paid attendance in 1991 rose 46 percent, to 49,000. The museum's public profile rose through after-hours private parties and public events, such as Roanoke's First Night celebration on New Year's Eve, that Brosky helped to bring in.
Its long-term debt dropped by roughly 20 percent, from $525,000 to $418,000, he said, but his five-year plan for retiring the 15-year commercial loan has been foiled by the budget cuts.
The museum's $1 million fund-raising campaign has brought in about $500,000. About $300,000 of that is in money and pledges. The rest has come from in-kind contributions.
"The campaign went extremely well, given the fact that we've never done one before and the economy is so fouled up," Glenn said.
Brosky said he told the board when he was hired that he probably would stay for three to five years. The money crunch contributed to his decision to move on. "We really don't have the resources to do what I'd like to do," he said.
"I'm sorry to see him leave," said Julien Sacks, a longtime NRHS member and museum board member who works as a volunteer at the museum's gift shop once each month. "I'm very much pleased with what he's done, and I like the way he operates. . . . He's a doer, as far as I'm concerned."
Asked to evaluate Brosky's management skills, board member Glenn said, "It's really hard to answer. . . . Certainly there were some disappointments, but I don't think it's appropriate to relate some of that. When you don't have any money, you've got a major disappointment right there."
Board member Lynn Meyer said Brosky was criticized for the budget he presented for the coming year. Some members found it incomplete.
But, she said, "I see it as a failing of the board, not the individual." The board should have provided Brosky with more support, she said.
She also said she found it difficult at times to know what was going on with the board.
"I was enthusiastic about joining the board because of my belief in Stan Brosky," she said. "Since I've been on the board, I haven't been solicited to participate in any committee work."
Meyer, who sits on the boards of other cultural groups, finds that unusual.
Brosky agrees that he is strongest in people skills. "I'm a rather untraditional museum director because I'm a huckster, a community relations person with a sense of humor," he said.
He spent nearly two decades with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and 14 months with the Pennsylvania Department of Taxation before he took over the Transportation Museum.
His last working day at the museum will be next Friday. He will leave Roanoke on Feb. 29.
With his departure, the museum faces two challenges, Glenn said - finding an executive director and finding ways to generate cash.
"Our mission now is to make sure we don't backslide at all, and that's going to be tough."
Vermilionville is a $5.5 million economic development project built by the Lafayette Parish-Bayou Vermilion District, a governmental body created by the Louisiana legislature in 1985. Open for about 18 months, it consists of 19 structures on 22 acres in Lafayette, a city of 87,000 about 50 miles west of Baton Rouge. It employs 80 people and has an annual budget of $2 million, Brosky said.
About $1.7 million of that money is revenue generated by visitors, who numbered 137,000 last year. Public funds provide the other $300,000. One of Brosky's tasks will be to make the project self-sufficient.
The district's master plan calls for 26 projects on the 33-mile-long bayou. Vermilionville, with arts, crafts, food, music and historical interpretations, is "supposed to be the catalyst to get the other projects going," said Lorna Guynn, executive director for the district.
Brosky was chosen from among 263 applicants to be Vermilionville's executive director.
"I think he's going to be great for this project," Guynn said. "He has the experience we need, a museum background and sensitivity to history and culture. We feel lucky we got him."