A Dinosaur’s White Knight : Culture: Can Mick Hager save the San Diego Natural History Museum from years of malaise? He thinks so, and so do many others.

Dr. Michael (Mick) Hager is not fooling himself. He knows he walked into a tough job in July when he became the executive director of the San Diego Natural History Museum.

A card from a friend at the National Science Foundation sums up the task ahead. It shows a small knight standing before a very large dragon.

“No Guts, No Glory,” the caption says.

Three months into the job, Hager is finding out just how much guts his new job will take.

The Balboa Park museum’s finances have been in a chronic state of disarray. As recently as 1988, an auditor from the National Science Foundation could not complete an investigation into the museum’s budget--he could not find the records.

Last January, Allen Shaw, then part-time interim director, said the museum was more than $124,000 in debt. Hager’s latest audit has discovered the museum is “at least” $300,000 in debt.

Staff morale, poor for more than a decade, hit an all-time low in December when eight employees, four from the science staff, were fired in a cost-cutting move. The museum’s library, nationally famous for its extensive collections, had its budget slashed by 80%. A debate raged over whether the museum should import blockbuster exhibits or stress home-grown science.

Hager has spent most of the past three months assessing which direction to go in. Although calling the museum’s collections “amazing,” he said he was shocked to discover that the museum seemed to have no active plans.

There was no exhibit schedule, no accurate budget, no long-term slate of projects.

“This place was filled with what I call ad-hocracies,” he said of the museum, which has a $2.2-million annual budget.

Worst of all, fund raising was moribund. Hager scored an immediate success by winning a $130,000 grant from the local Sefton Foundation. The grant will be used to support long-term planning; a planning committee of staff, board members and civic leaders has already been formed.

The goal, Hager said, is to develop a mission statement and strategies to help the museum find greater relevance to the community.

Another grant of $194,000 for the museum’s botany collections came in September from the National Science Foundation.

Hager has also set up a three-year exhibit schedule that stresses what he calls “mini-blockbusters,” traveling exhibits--mainly from other sources--designed for audience appeal. The first of these will be “Whales: Giants of the Deep,” set to open Feb. 1. Hager said this first show will provide a critical test of his plan to save the museum.

Other plans include a possible change in the admission price from the $5 adult tab, a fee Hager thinks is sometimes “not worth it.” Hager said he is considering either lowering the fee or finding more ways to add value to the price.

Before Hager, the museum had become a virtual revolving door for directors. Hager is the museum’s ninth director since 1978, the 15th since 1964. Past directors have been frustrated by their inability to push the 117-year-old museum forward. The building,which has never been expanded to its planned size, is deteriorating, exhibit space is small and attendance ragged.

Hager’s job is to turn things around.

Hager, who is tall, is also plain-spoken, a trait possibly left over from his youth in Marshalltown, Iowa. If he is nervous at all about taking over a struggling museum, he isn’t showing it.

“Everybody I talked to (before taking the job) agreed this museum had lots of potential,” he said. “But they also knew this museum’s record had been dismal for the last 10 years.”

A scientist himself, Hager has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, and a doctorate in geology and paleontology from the University of Wyoming. He also taught geology at Augustana College in Indiana from 1973 to 1978. Hager began his career as a museum director in 1978 at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont.

“He is very definitely a dynamo,” said Judy Weaver, that museum’s acting director. “At the time Mick got here in 1978, we had a small staff of three, not many permanent exhibits, no active programs at all. Mick stepped in and started to build educational programs and brought the museum alive.”

According to Weaver, the Bozeman museum’s budget was about $60,000 when Hager arrived. When he left, it was more than $3 million.

In 1989, Hager left Bozeman for the brand-new Virginia Museum of Natural History, a state-supported museum in Martinsville. “Mick’s reputation as a man who can get things done has preceded him,” said Gail Gregory of the Virginia museum.

“Mick came in and rolled up his sleeves and helped us get through some tough times,” Gregory said. “We took a 15% cut two years in a row, but Mick was a public relations person’s dream. He dealt well with people. He blended right in and charmed (donors). That’s part of Mick’s gift.”

Hager secured private and corporate financing, started educational outreach programs and set up branch offices at two other Virginia locations.

But just when the museum was about to hold its grand reopening, Hager announced his plans to leave for San Diego.

According to Charles Guthrie, acting president of the San Diego Society of Natural History, Hager “appeared to us to be a man who was really a live wire. He had been involved in museums for a number of years and had an excellent track record as an executive director.”

The society raised Hager’s salary $10,000 to $87,500, and the deal was done.

Hager knows reputation won’t save a museum. His first job upon assuming his post July 1 was to attempt to earn the trust of his staff.

“I came into my first staff meeting and said, ‘Here are my plans for this museum,’ ” he recalled. “I held up a notebook with blank pages. I want the staff to participate in the direction this museum takes.”

The staff has noticed the difference.

“Things are going great,” said Geoff Levin, curator of birds. “From within about a week after he got here, the whole tone of the place was improved. . . . He doesn’t sugarcoat things, but, by the same token, he is the kind of person you can disagree with but maintain mutual respect.”

One key, said Craig Black, director of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, is Hager’s relationship with the board of directors, a group that in the past has been accused of being ineffective and meddling.

Guthrie conceded that the board has made mistakes, but insisted that it has agreed to hand the reins over to Hager.

“Mick Hager is running the museum,” Guthrie said.

Hager seems warily optimistic about the task at hand. “This place shows neglect everywhere,” he said. “The staff has been through a rough decade of constant change. We’ve had five years of deficit spending.”

He thought for a moment, then, as if strapping on his gloves, said, “I think I can turn that tide.”