Museum CEO to Retire
Museum of Northern
Arizona president and
CEO announces
June 2015 retirement
Dr. Robert Breunig will retire as president and CEO of the Museum of Northern Arizona on June 30, 2015.
Breunig, who has been MNA director since December 2003, said his early announcement was to ensure sufficient time to identify his successor and provide for an orderly transition. He will assume the title of President Emeritus after June.
Breunig, 68, joined MNA as its first director of education in 1975, later serving in two curatorial positions. From there, he moved to the Heard Museum in Phoenix as deputy director and chief curator, and then to Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden, as executive director for nine years. He left Arizona for a time, serving as executive director for California’s Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and, later, for The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas.
In 2004, Breunig returned to Arizona to lead MNA during a particularly challenging time. Under his leadership, MNA’s American Alliance of Museums accreditation was restored in 2008 after having been rescinded prior to his arrival in 2003. MNA eliminated $600,000 in bank debt and increased endowment funds from $4 million to $8.7 million. Other key achievements include: funding and construction of the award-winning Easton Collection Center, a LEED Platinum structure, and major renovations of buildings and grounds on the Harold S. Colton Research Center campus. The Danson Chair of Anthropology was funded and filled, a new curator was established in the biological sciences and the Geology Department reopened.
“Over the last decade, MNA has refocused its efforts on the core mission of the museum – studying, collecting, preserving and interpreting the natural and cultural history and art of the Colorado Plateau,” said Breunig. “We have greatly strengthened the care of our collections, restored key research positions and extended our public programs with an eye not only to the past but the future. During the remainder of my tenure, I hope to set even more substantial improvements to the museum in motion.”
In addition to major renovations just completed on the historic Museum Exhibit Building, two notable collections were recently received: the Robert and Cis Hawk collection of 512 contemporary Kachina dolls, and a collection from the estate of Phil M. Smith containing artwork by well-known Hopi artist Dan Namingha and sons Arlo and Michael. Breunig is responsible for stronger ties that have been formed between MNA and the Hopi, Zuni, Navajo and Hispanic community.
Breunig was appointed by both President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton to serve on the National Museum and Library Services Board, the governing board of the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences. For the past six years, Breunig has served on the Arizona Commission on the Arts as a commissioner.
