BOWERS MUSEUM DIRECTOR WILL RESIGN JUNE 30

William Lee, director of Bowers Museum in Santa Ana for the past 3 1/2 years, will resign his post on June 30 to spend more time with his family, he said in a phone interview Thursday.

“I do feel Bowers is headed in a very positive direction, and it is developing into a strong regional facility,” Lee said. “I still live in Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley, which is a two-hour drive each way. I want more time with my family.”

Lee said he is considering returning to university work. “I have several opportunities in mind,” Lee said, but declined to say what they are.

At the Nov. 25 meeting of the Santa Ana City Council, the council authorized a new $41,000-a-year assistant director position at Bowers, but Lee denied this was a factor in his decision to leave his $51,000-a-year job. “I’ve been asking for someone in that post for some time,” he said. “This museum needs both a strong director and a strong assistant director.”

Lee emphasized that the move is strictly for personal reasons and that neither the many changes nor the problems that Bowers has faced during his 3 1/2-year tenure are behind his decision to leave.

Museum officials and the City Council have struggled for years with the Bowers Museum Foundation, an organizational base for volunteers, over the issue of control of the city-owned museum. In July, the nonprofit Charles W. Bowers Museum Corp. was formed to run the museum and the foundation was subsequently disbanded. But some volunteers have since left the museum in protest, charging that the city has assumed full control of the Charles Bowers Museum Corp.

Additionally, expansion and reorganization plans have been delayed for years and the museum still has not gained national accreditation. And earlier this year, the museum and the city suffered embarrassment by prematurely announcing a major exhibit of works by international masters. The show, proposed by the Sacramento-based Foundation for International Exhibits, had not been cleared by the European agencies that have jurisdiction over the artworks.

But Santa Ana City Manager Robert C. Bobb said Thursday that he was not aware of any discontent on Lee’s part and added that the “return to academe” was the only reason given him by Lee. “He has guided the museum through a very difficult period, particularly during a time of restructuring.”

Bobb added that the city will immediately begin a national search for both a director and assistant director. Other staff expansion plans at Bowers call for the hiring of a development director and marketing director in the near future, Bobb said.