ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, January 26, 1996               TAG: 9601260066
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: B-5  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON 

MUSEUM'S NEW DIRECTOR NAMED

Stephen J. Pike was named the new executive director of the Virginia Museum of Natural History on Thursday.

The announcement was made at a meeting of the museum's Board of Trustees in Richmond.

Pike, of Falls Church, replaces Connie Gendron, who left the Martinsville-based museum last year to pursue interests in Wyoming.

Paisley S. Cato, curator of collections at the museum, was interim director during the search for Gendron's successor.

Pike spent the past year as a consultant to the Smithsonian Institution's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education in Washington.

He also advised Georgetown University Press and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington.

Before that, Pike managed budgets of more than $20 million as assistant director for the marketing arm of the Smithsonian Institution. He led a team that obtained new funding, developed new markets and created products that generated $280,000 annual net income, said Don Sutton, a spokesman for the Martinsville museum.

Pike's salary as museum director was not disclosed.

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