Hasta La Ideas

A big change ahead for one of Chicago’s largest museums, as long-serving chief executive and president John McCarter Jr. has this week announced his retirement from the Field Museum. Having been in the position for the last fifteen years, overseeing likely thousands of individual projects and exhibitions (including two record-setting ones in 2000 and 2006, the former of which involved securing the locally-beloved “Sue,” the “most complete and most expensive Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever found”), hundreds of millions of dollars raised in fundraising efforts, and weathering the most recent financial crisis that shook many museums to their cores, McCarter is expected to step down sometime next year. While he prepares for his departure, NPR-affiliate WBEZ reports that the museum “has hired an executive search firm to help find a replacement.” Here’s McCarter’s statement from the press release:

It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to serve as president of such a dynamic institution. I have great confidence that well into the future The Field Museum will continue its leadership in environmental conservation, evolutionary biology, paleontology, and anthropology and will continue to be a driving force in the city’s cultural community.

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