(bright upbeat music) - Welcome to Business Forward.
I'm your host, Matt George.
Joining me tonight, John Morris.
John is the president and CEO of the Peoria Riverfront Museum.
Welcome John.
- Outstanding to be here with you Matt.
- Well, let's start off with you because you've got a great family but I always look at you as the region's number one cheerleader.
- Well, it's an honor.
- It is.
- I think I have an army of people who are like me, love Central Illinois, love Peoria.
I think it's the greatest city in the world.
I'm proud to be on the team.
- You're proud of me on the team, but you're not only just talking about Peoria Riverfront Museum, you're talking about our town.
- Yeah.
- Our community.
- Yeah, that's a great point.
When I came to the museum four years ago to work for just a tremendous board, I call it the best board in town, our current chairman, Steve Jackson, is a great leader, and I've worked now with Katie McCord Jenkins who you've had on your show for Illinois Mutual.
Sid Ruckriegel, a business person and civically active, was the chair when I first came on.
So I've worked with three great chairs and a great board.
- Right.
- But I told them when we came on, my interest wasn't so much in the museum as it was in the community.
- Right.
- And I saw the museum as a tool to unleash the full talent and genius of every individual in the community.
And therefore my interest was deeply in the museum, but museums can be tool for transformations, confidence building, talent unleashing tools.
And I think that's what we're trying to do with the Peoria Riverfront Museum and I think we're getting there.
- And it's funny you say that because I think if more entities or business thought that way, the region as a whole would be better.
I truly believe that.
- I think so.
I think that many feel the same way.
I think they need permission to say so.
And the Peoria Riverfront Museum is trying to give everybody permission to.
Find the things that make us first best or only unique and celebrate them.
It'll only help build our confidence.
It's like a great sports team that stands on the shoulders of a tradition of victory and close finishes and great coaching.
- Culture.
- Culture.
There's a saying that is often misattributed that, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast."
But I like to say, I like to ask the question, What gives a culture it's sort of sense of mission?
And I think it's purpose.
So purpose gives culture, leads to culture and then culture does create strategy, but we have to have a sense of purpose.
- Yeah.
I mean, Peoria Riverfront Museum is the only private accredited museum of art science history and achievement in the nation.
- It's amazing.
I didn't even know it when I came on as their CEO four years ago, our CEO.
A museum of art, science, history and achievement, those four pillars.
When you think about the major cities, even Upstate Illinois as I call our friends in Chicago they call us Downstate, so I call them Upstate.
Upstate Illinois has one of the greatest museum communities in the world.
They have a fine art museum in the Art Institute of Chicago, they have a great natural history museum and the field museum, they have a technology and industry museum and museum of science and history, Adler Planetarium and The Chicago History Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art.
And they're all six or eight miles from each other.
They're big enough to sustain these individual specialized museums.
We may not be big enough to sustain six or eight accredited professional museums, but in some ways it's been a blessing because we combined the professionalism the storytelling, inspirational power into one place.
The only giant screen theater in the State of Illinois and a museum is in Peoria, Illinois.
- Yeah.
- And with the closure of Navy Pier IMAX permanently closed this year during the pandemic I think we're the largest screen in the whole state of Illinois now.
- Is it that crazy.
- Amazing.
And of course our planetarium, it's about to get an unbelievable $700,000 equipment upgrade.
There'll be the best, the most advanced planetarium system in the country.
So lots going right, a lot is going in the right direction.
- Yeah.
We're going talk about some of that, but I want ask about you because I had somebody tell me once, It doesn't matter what your background is.
If you're a good person and know how to run a business, you can go into any.
So you went into a business that you didn't have a background as a... - Well, it's probably little known or little remembered that right out of...
I did my undergraduate and graduate school at the George Washington University and born and raised in Peoria Richwoods High School graduate.
The GW is blocks from every great Smithsonian Museum and so forth.
So I was immersed in the museum world and when I got out of grad school, Master of Public Administration, I came to work back here in my hometown for Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences.
So I actually started my career, - You're right.
- As a professional museum person.
I just had no idea I would go for full circle, but the track I've been on has really never changed, it's philanthropy connected to culture and education and talent unleashing places.
And of course, right here in this place I had 10 years at WTVP and then 10 years at Eureka college and then four years ago I came full circle back around to the museum.
- Yeah.
So let's talk about at the museum.
Let's talk numbers for a minute.
How many people pre COVID or your goals moving forward, however you want to look at it, how many people walk through those doors?
- Right, so 180,000 visitor experiences a year and in the museum world, you count experiences based on ticketed experiences.
So if you come and go to the giant screen theater, classic film series, every Friday night, we're one of the great classics, that's a ticketed experience.
If you happen to come two hours earlier and get a ticket to go through the galleries and see one of the rotating exhibitions and the screen, it's two experiences.
So we think it's probably about 110,000 to 120,000 people and it's 180,000 total visitor experiences, pre pandemic of course.
- Okay.
So as I'm a family member.
- Yeah.
- So we have a family pass - Yeah.
- One year pre COVID, we probably went 10 times.
- Yeah.
Good for you, by the way.
Thank you.
We need more people like you.
10 times, yeah.
- So do you count, if I bring five of my family members with me, do you count those five?
- Yeah, all five, all the visits.
And I'd say we're on the increase, probably total 1.2 million visitor experiences, but Matt, if I might answer the question now in a sort of not post pandemic, but moving toward post pandemic answer.
Unbelievably, the pandemic has forced us, in a good way, to inspire people other than ways of getting them in the physical buildings.
So our planetarium director, Renae Kerrigan, and her associate, Nick Rae did a live stream cast of the great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter on December 21 of 2020 that everybody called it the Christmas star, that's the closest Jupiter and Saturn come in the night sky like visibly, there were still 400 million miles apart, but we had 88,000 views of that one hour live stream Facebook from all over the world.
- Wow.
- More than the total number of people in the seats in the planetarium for the year.
So it's possible being closed 216 days in the pandemic which is where we've been that we've actually touched and reach more lives, not necessarily in the same way that an in-person visit would be.
But we may have touched more people than ever before this year.
- And you've opened up a new line of business.
- New line of business.
We're in the communications business.
We always have been, we had a digital initiative going about a year prior to the pandemic, but everybody had their toes in the pool.
This just pushed everybody into the pool.
- Yeah.
So during COVID, how did you keep morale up with your staff?
I mean, what did you do to manage the business because you are the lead?
- Yeah, I have to say our mission is to unleash the full talent genius of everybody in the community.
My mission is to unleash the full talent and genius of everybody on my team.
And there's a ton of it there.
They inspire me every day.
You, I'm sure you feel the same way in the leadership you have in the nonprofit and I call it the nonprofit business sector because we are a business and everybody on our team is looking for how to increase the ability for us to serve.
And you can't do that without money.
So philanthropy is our bread and butter three quarters of every dollar that comes in and a $5 million annual budget pre pandemic 5 million we cut a lot of expenses and no staff during the pandemic, not a single staff person received a cutback.
- We applaud you for that.
I just find it interesting.
I think your business is interesting.
So I want to kind of go to what, you know I love or just exhibits and pieces.
So how does a museum acquire pieces?
- Yeah Great question.
First we start looking at the story of our region and the values of our people and what is it that we really need to collect long-term and we do have a permanent collection of 15,000 extraordinary objects.
So let me give you an example of one from the start.
The Illinois river was created in an instantaneous geological event called the Kankakee torrent in which a glacial meltwater lake behind a moraine kind of a bathtub of earth and soil broke free and formed this river in overnight.
Some geologists believe 48 hours time.
Unbelievable.
Most of us don't know that the Illinois river was formed in an overnight event and estimated maybe 12,000 years ago by geologists.
So would it make sense for us to have objects of interest in storytelling around the story of the Illinois river and the indigenous peoples it attracted the European immigrants the oldest continuously settled community in the Midwest the French settlers first coming in 1680, and then from 1691 on a permanent settlement, the oldest in the Midwest.
Incredible.
So all of this story, we need to start to attach artifacts to the story, to be able to tell.
So we've acquired tile balls.
There are these incredible earthen balls that can only be formed by massive rushes of water and the water, when the moraine broke and the water came rushing through the State of Illinois in an event that none of us living have ever seen or can even conceive, It estimated to be 200 miles an hour, and a wall of water a hundred to 150 feet tall.
It stirred up these earthen balls that are only formed when an event like that takes place.
So we've found these balls.
In fact, Kim Blickenstaff and the work he's doing over at Sankoty is excavating some of these tile balls.
There's the rare we've acquired some for the collection.
- Oh my days.
- To tell the story of the river.
In that case, we acquired them through gifts, duck decoys.
- I was just going mention.
- Duck decoys.
We just, our decoy advisory council Randy Rood chairs that and our board of directors, Colleen DiGiallonardo, chair of our our collections committee authorized us to use some resources that we came up with to go after two absolute prize decoys that were in the collection of former governor Jim Thompson, who was one of the major decoys collectors post gubernatorial years in the country.
Jim Thompson passed away within the last couple of years.
And his estate went up for auction in late May.
I mean, late April.
Pardon me late April.
Well, we bid on two Hiram Hotze Decoys, probably the best pair of mallards of their kind in the country.
And we got them.
- Nice.
- So we acquired them to add to our Center for American Decoys because the greatest art form that ever came from Central and Hawaii is the folk art of waterfall.
A wooden decoy.
- So Bob Gilmore, - Yes.
- Who was tied to the museum and many other things he gifted children's home property and he has a caboose out there that was his office and in there at one time, not anymore but he collected decoys too.
And so, and I know Doug over Hillman is - Anybody who knows the waterfall hunting business as a hobby, or just tangentially will know of decoys, whether they collect or not they'll know them.
What most of us, including me, I'm not a duck hunter.
And I did not know this, but what most of us should know if we live in Central Illinois, that these are prizes the world over these decoys that were carved by Charles Shane Hider Peoria, Charlie Perdew of Henry Illinois, bird graves of Peoria and so forth.
These are people from our own backyard.
Their decoys are prized among the best folk art of its kind in the world.
So I say, if we have the best of anything in Peoria the museum should be attempting to acquire it and brag about it make us proud.
- That's pretty cool.
So when you had the exhibit last year and you had like Ronald Reagan's boots and Abraham Lincoln's I don't know if he called his desk, but those are some of the cool that's Smithsonian stuff.
- Yeah.
- I mean, that is top notch.
Do you take those on the loan?
- Yeah.
- And have to give them back.
- Many of the objects on loan right now with 101 treasures exhibition, you can see 101 treasures.
We own, it's incredible including a funeral flag from Abraham Lincoln and recently acquired a life mask made three months prior to the death of Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's face it's cast in bronze only 15 of them in existence.
There's one at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
- I've seen that, I've seen that there.
Oh, that is so you have one now here - We own one.
It's a gift to the museum.
We've actually been acquiring works of very high quality which you call Smithsonian quality art.
We tell you about one or two that just came to the collection.
I think you'd be interested in, first of all arguably the most famous artists, certainly one of the most famous artists from Central Illinois and maybe in the State of Illinois and the bicentennial of Illinois who was voted one of the top three artists in the history of the State, Preston Jackson, just gifted to the museum and a promise gift, an incredible work of art called Bronzeville to Harlem: An American Story which is on long-term permit work.
As far as I'm concerned, permanent display at the Peoria Riverfront Museum hundreds of cast figures painted bronze that tell the story not only of the great migration, the Harlem Renaissance but really of America.
I mean, it's such a part of the fabric of America.
Another thing we've just acquired a couple from Pekin Jerry and Mary Ann Milan who ran the Golden Voice Studios and recorded some of the biggest acts in modern American history Styx, REO Speedwagon, Dan Fogelberg, some groups that had contact connection to Illinois and some of didn't turns out Jerry Milam took the first ever public relations photograph of a young comedic actor named Richard Pryor at age 21.
Nobody knew he had them.
The Milams have been working with our Lead Curator, Bill Conger and just mentioned to us, Oh yeah, we've got them and so Jerry and Mary Ann have now given the earliest photographs public relations photographs of Richard Pryor ever taken to us, that's Smithsonian quality as you put it that's part of national entertainment history.
And it's somebody that is worth a much more thorough examination by the people of Central Illinois.
He's the most famous person arguably to come out of Central Illinois.
- That is amazing.
And so Bill knows what he's doing.
- Bill Conger our Lead Curator, Renea Kerrigan our Science Curator and Planetarium Director Zac Zetterberg with Center for American Decoys and Art and Lottie Fiddes in History.
Those are kind of the super four, the fab four of the of the curatorial team and the whole staff Matt.
I appreciate you asking, you're a collector.
Let me, I know you're in doing the interview but let me turn it back on you.
What makes collectors want to collect?
Why do you do what you do?
- Yeah, you do it for a lot of things.
I use a term, my dad uses all the time.
It's Americana, it's I collect old baseball and I don't really care much about current day baseball pads or autographs or things like that.
But, I like thinking about and telling my kids stories about the Hank Aaron's and the Willie Mays and those guys and how they transformed a sport.
Now he's playing sports.
And it's fun to tell a story.
I, you know, that during the exhibit a couple years ago that we wound a couple Walter Payton pieces to you.
Well, there's a story behind Walter Payton and it's interesting, - Super interesting.
- So I love it.
And it's not for money - And thank you for that.
Thanks for that.
You know that exhibition, - My favorite.
- You celebrate Illinois 200 years in the land of Lincoln, curated by Lottie Fiddes our History Curator and the whole team worked on it turns out Matt it was the only comprehensive bicentennial exhibition for Illinois, that the State had.
And it was phenomenal.
We borrowed John Deere's first plow from the Smithsonian.
We had the emancipation proclamation desk from the Chicago History Museum.
- That makes no sense.
I mean, it's stuff like that.
That is really cool.
And there's no other word for it other than that, I mean, it's just unbelievable.
I went to that exhibit.
I bet you 10 times.
- Good for you.
- Yeah.
I mean it was really cool.
So you've got something else that I was going to say my favorite part of the museum is the planetarium and I and you brought up new equipment, but those projectors and those are world-class those aren't just best in the State or whatever those are World class projectors aren't they?
- So the two pieces of fundamental equipment in the planetarium one is the star ball.
It's manufactured by a German company called Zeiss, it projects 6,000 pinpoint stars onto the 40 foot dome in a way actually more stars than you can see anywhere on earth.
The place you can see the most stars by the naked eye on earth is in Chile the country of Chile in South America.
It's the humidity up in the Andes mountains you can see more stars than anywhere.
And that's why half of the world's telescopes and investment in telescopes are located in Chile including multi-billion dollar investments by American astronomy.
- Wow.
- So the planetarium has a 6,000 star projector but what we are adding, coming up on the 21st of May is a state-of-the-art new second piece of equipment which is the projection system that allows us to allow you the visitor to fly by Saturn to look at the moons of Jupiter, to go to the outer reaches of the known explored universe, as science knows it.
And science is doubling its knowledge, every year now, in terms of just generally speaking and with us speaking of astronomy, it's really incredible but what this new projector, system known it's a 6.5 K Digistar 7 system.
There's no system more modern than this system in any planetarium in the country.
So there are bigger domes than ours, but ours would be absolutely blow you away.
We're able to take instantaneous geological information earthquake information from around the country the tremors around the world the globe project them on the dome ceiling.
So, and we can take all kinds of big data now and live projected for leadership, leadership development, leadership talks.
- Well I had a talk there a few years ago.
I actually brought Dan Hampton of the Bears there and did a fundraiser in the planetarium.
And we showed the Super Bowl highlights on the wall.
- On the planetarium - Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Very cool.
So I want to talk about this because this is what my youngest son is going to go nuts on is the T.Rex, The Ultimate Predator.
This is coming to - First time in Peoria history a major international traveling blockbuster museum exhibition will launch it's world tour from Peoria.
It's incredible.
- That's incredible - Bill Conger and I went out to New York City.
We met with the president and our friends at the American Museum of Natural History.
And one of their stellar executives named Jennifer Chow was really worked closely with us to make Peoria the first.
And it's taken an investment SEFCU has put up a significant amount of money as the lead sponsor but more than 330 visionary society members those who are the leading members of the museum give 1000 or 2,500 , 5,000 a year and so forth they put up money, but this is going to be pretty cool.
- So you've got a lot of real neat things happening but I want to go back to Preston Jackson because he's right in our backyard here.
- He's right here.
- He's world renowned.
- He is renowned.
And I think his reputation in the art world and the museum world, for example, is going to only rise.
Preston is our renaissance man, if there's renaissance man and we have some superb artistic talent in here like Loni Stewart is just one of the great folks we've got We did a show called Emergence a few years ago 40 of the most talented visual artists from the region.
We've got a lot of talent Preston back to Preston for a minute.
He is a jazz guitarist.
One of the finest in the State he's a Tai Chi martial arts master.
He's a car collector.
He is of Illinois.
He received the Lincoln Laureate Award, The State's highest recognition.
He's born in Dakota, Southern Illinois, University of Illinois taught at the Art Institute of Chicago.
So he's been all South and North of our State but he settled here in Peoria.
He created his art a Checkered Raven Studio and the Contemporary Arts Center.
And this piece Bronzeville to Harlem is his lifetime work.
I mean, he continues to add to it.
He's almost doubled it in the last couple of years since we began discussions with him.
And then he donated and announced his gift of this work to the museum.
And I think it's really going to be a beautiful thing for people for years to come.
- It is he's a special man.
And I was talking to Jonathan Romain with hard ink and you talk about the impact of art or the arts to kids now.
It's even more important now than it was even when we were younger I think because there's just needs to be that again, I go back to that Americana feel, that peace, that knowledge and whenever I see anything by Preston Jackson I'm just blown away.
- He's probably above all those titles I just mentioned and historian he loves American history and telling stories in history.
So, yeah.
Thanks for bringing that up Matt.
- So 101 treasures.
You own those pieces.
- Yeah.
So what happens, We postponed two exhibitions, a superb and we didn't cancel we postpone them a superb exhibition by documentarian Ken Burns, - Oh I love Ken Burns.
- Who of course we're here in the set of the WTVP PBS.
One of the great PBS stations in the country Ken Burns is well-known to PBS audiences.
So we're postponed that.
Then we postponed a railroaders photography exhibition.
That'll be in the fall when we did that, we didn't know when the state was going to allow us to open again.
So we went to the vaults and brought out the 101 treasures and they will be up through the summer alongside T.Rex of The Ultimate Predator.
So - Well I can't wait.
And you do a great job.
Your staff is unbelievable.
The museum's clean.
I love that aspect of it.
It's just a good facility.
We appreciate everything you do.
Thanks for coming on, - Matt you too.
- It's awesome.
- Thanks for doing the show.
- Well, I appreciate it.
So it's another episode of Business Forward and I'm Matt George.
See you next time.
(upbeat music)
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sa7SZ6arn1%2BrtqWxzmiqaWldmoBzec%2BepquhkWK%2FqsLEq52rp56peq7B0p6spmWhbX2xw8Zo