Clinton library picks Mainer Bangor Museum director relishes academic opportunity

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BANGOR – Terri Garner’s time in the Queen City is about to be one for the history books.

Garner, who has served since 2005 as executive director of the Bangor Museum and Center for History, has accepted the director position at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark. She begins her new job on Nov. 5.

“The truth of the matter is, it’s the same process – I’ll have the same academic responsibilities and the same scholarly responsibilities, just on a national scale, a larger scale,” Garner said. “I would not have been offered this job without the Bangor Museum.”

Garner, 52, will be the library’s second director since it opened in 2004. The facility, one of 12 presidential libraries in the country, houses more than 76.8 million pages of paper documents, 1.85 million photographs and 75,000 museum artifacts acquired during Clinton’s presidency. Its holdings are the largest in the 12-library system, which is overseen by the National Archives and Records Administration.

“When we built this library, we wanted to create a unique place where people could come and learn about America at the turn of the 21st century and where they would feel engaged in that experience,” former President Clinton said. “In less than three years, over 1 million visitors have visited the library and hopefully left with a new understanding of the United States. Terri, with her unique blend of private sector and nonprofit experience, is a great fit to guide the library in the coming years.”

Garner replaces David Alsobrook, who announced his retirement earlier this year.

Sharon Fawcett, assistant archivist for the presidential library system, said the search committee for a new director “was very impressed with Terri’s dynamic leadership of the museum in Bangor and her strong interest in the community. Those skills were the skills we wanted to see in the Clinton library director. Presidential libraries are national institutions that serve their local communities. We feel Terri will be a great fit in this job.”

Garner said she hopes to spread the word about presidential libraries – both locally and nationally – and educate the public on how to use the resources within the collections.

If her tenure at the Bangor Museum is any indication, Garner is up to the task. Since she joined the staff in 2005, she has raised the museum’s profile in the community and worked with exhibit designers to make the facility’s holdings accessible and interesting to the public.

“She brought an energy to the director position that we hadn’t seen before,” said Russ Harrington, the president of the museum and center for history’s board of directors. “She also brought not only a vast interest in history, but this business background that you don’t often get with the director of a nonprofit history museum. … That really gave us just what we needed. She was here at just the right time.”

Shortly after Garner’s arrival, Bill and Sally Arata donated a four-story building on Broad Street to become the museum’s permanent home. Earlier this year, the museum embarked on a major capital campaign to renovate the space.

“She has done a great job of putting together a process and a system … I think we can deal with it moving forward,” said Ed Clift, co-chairman of the museum’s capital campaign committee. “The thing we’ll lose with her is the vision she’s had right along as to how the museum should be built and what needs to be put in place to make this an interactive museum.”

Garner made it clear that she intends to stay involved in Bangor even after she has left for Arkansas. However, as an historian and a Clinton fan, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work at the presidential library.

“This is the dream job,” Garner said.

After a long career in the business and marketing world, including a stint with Xerox, Garner decided to pursue her master’s degree in history at the University of Colorado. In 2004, she came to Maine to further her studies.

“It’s a combination of a lifelong interest in history and a midlife crisis gone bad – or good, as the case may be,” Garner said, laughing. “Most people get a Corvette. I decided to get a Ph.D.”

Garner’s combination of business acumen and historical knowledge appealed to the hiring panel at the National Archives and Records Administration. Like many museums, the presidential library system is trying to become more businesslike, to reach out to a greater segment of the population, “to take history out of the ivory tower and bring it to the people,” Garner said.

“In our education process, so much is spent on science and math, you’re slowly losing history, music and art – the soft subjects – they’re just being ebbed away,” Garner said. “There’s a responsibility in the museum world, at the local Bangor Museum and at the presidential libraries. There’s a vacuum. We need to help fill that educational piece.”

To that end, the presidential library system introduced an online, interactive history curriculum now used in schools throughout the United States. Each library interprets the events through its own papers and archival material.

The system started in 1939, when President Franklin Roosevelt donated his personal and official papers to the government. Every president since has had a library built in his honor by a separate nonprofit foundation. Once the library and museum are completed, the foundation then turns over the keys and the management duties to the federal government.

One unusual aspect of the Clinton library is the fact that the former president is still alive – and full of ideas for his life and his library.

“In this case you have a living president who’s really active,” Garner said. “You don’t work for him, but certainly all the things you’re doing you want to make sure he’s happy with. It’s his legacy you’re telling.”

Before her hiring, she met with President Clinton, an experience she described as “awe-inspiring.” They discussed ideas for future exhibits, including a traveling exploration of the lives of past presidents once they’ve become private citizens again.

“What does a retired president do?” Garner asked. “It would be fun to do comparisons with George Washington and Jefferson.”

Hilary Clinton’s service in the U.S. Senate along with her presidential campaign also will make things interesting for Garner.

“Even if she does not get elected, you’ve still never had this situation before,” she said.

By all accounts, Garner will be busy once November rolls around. But she plans to stay involved in Bangor, both as a member of the capital campaign committee and a supporter of the museum. She fully expects to be there when the museum opens its doors on Broad Street in late 2008. In the interim, her friends here know that even if she’s not around in person, she’s here in spirit.

“Her legacy will be guiding us to a more prominent stage in Bangor,” Harrington said. “Terri would not want us to falter one bit here, and we won’t. No one should wonder if we can move forward and still succeed. We will do that.”

For information on the William J. Clinton Library, visit www.clintonlibrary.gov. For information on the Bangor Museum and Center for History, visit www.bangormuseum.com.