BACK TO FULL STRENGTH
Five added to MASM Board of Trustees
Mid-America Science Museum recently announced five new members to its board of trustees, but museum CEO Diane LaFollette says the additions do not mark an expansion of the board but rather a return to full strength.
The new board members are Oaklawn Vice President of Marketing Chris Ho, Smile Hot Springs owner Dr. Ethan Erwin, Fowler Ranch manager Karen Wolstenholme, VIPA Hospitality President of Development Parth Patel, and former Executive Director of Hot Springs Academic Initiatives for Henderson State University Tiffany Rogers.
“Traditionally, we’ve had 15, and last year, we had 14,” LaFollette said, noting all five will be serving full terms on the board. “We had one vacancy we didn’t fill, and then four rolled off, so they gave us five vacancies to fill. So that’s why we have such a big cohort this year of five new board members.”
LaFollette said the museum attempts to keep its board diverse, and with the new members, the board consists of eight men and seven women.
“We’re very strategic about that,” she said. “Over the last several years, we’ve been really working on building board diversity and making sure that our board represents our community. We want to make sure we have a good range of ages, genders, ethnicities and races, so that we’re a good reflection of the community and we can have input thereby from those different parts of Hot Springs.”
New trustees either express interest in joining the board or are suggested by the board’s governance committee, whose primary roles include working to “cultivate new board members” and “bring a slate of prospective members” to the board as a whole, LaFollette said.
“Every time we invite some
one to come on the board, we actually spend several months looking at prospects or people that have mentioned interest in serving on the board or people that we’re interested in in particular, just to maintain that diversity,” she said. “We try to do a gender balance. We tried to do, just like I said, a range of different skills, as well.”
One of the trustees who “just rolled off” the board was Benjamin Van Wagner, Oaklawn’s vice president of information technology, which made Ho’s selection ideal.
“Chris is kind of taking that spot to represent Oaklawn on our board,” LaFollette said. “They’re a good supporter of the museum. We love to have their input and their expertise, and their support.”
Erwin, a Hot Springs native who recently returned to the area, was also a key choice.
“He’s the perfect demographic, he and his entire family, for what we do here at Mid-America,” LaFollette said. “So his input is very important. His interest is here because he wants good activities and good resources for his family and his children. … Even before he joined the board, he was active in some of our fundraising activities and things.”
Wolstenholme is another Hot Springs native who brings “a great perspective” to the board, and has “interests throughout the country with different businesses.”
Rogers, who recently retired, is a choice the committee has “been cultivating for a long time,” LaFollette said.
“This was a good time for her,” she said. “She is just getting active again into the community, and we’ve talked for several years about her joining the board. And she’s stayed interested the whole time, but the timing was just right.”
Patel has also been in talks with the committee for some time.
“Parth and I have been talking for several years about him joining our board, and just timing didn’t work for a little while, for one reason or another,” LaFollette said. “This year, it worked. He had the ability and a little bit of bandwidth, so that he can join because he’s very busy.”
On average, two trustees will rotate off the board each year, but this was not the first time such a large number of members rotated off the board at the same time, she said.
“Ideally, you have about the same number rotate off every year, so you kind of have this ever-flowing change,” she said. “You don’t have a massive change of membership, but it happened a few years ago where we had five people. Now that had to do with some people rolled off before their term ended for one reason or another, and that opened up some vacancies.
“Over time, we’ll work toward kind of evening that out a little bit better, but sometimes things happen, people move away, so you can’t always predict that.”
The board serves a strategic and fiduciary role for the museum, LaFollette said.
“They do not need to worry about doing the operations of the organization where they get in, try to figure out how things work,” she said.
“They absolutely 100% are encouraged to provide advice and ideas; we love that.
“But the true purpose of the board is it provides strategic direction … and then do fiduciary oversight. So they look at the financials to make sure that we have a good financial standing and a foundation and can work towards sustainability as far as the finances go.”
The library also recently sent out a request for the community to help complete a nationwide survey by the American Alliance of Museums to learn what the public wants or needs from the museum.
“That’s a nationwide survey,” LaFollette said. “We’ll get information that’s specific to Mid-America Science Museum, but that will be benchmarked against all the other information around the country to see where we fit and where the trends are going. So it’s really great information to have. This is the second time we participated, and it’s very valuable.”