State Museum Group Makes Bowers Its New Home : Relocation: The nonprofit service organization, previously in L.A., offers services to 225 institutions, including many in O.C.

The California Assn. of Museums, a nonprofit service organization founded in 1979, has relocated to the Bowers Museum from the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, where Bowers director Peter Keller used to be associate director.

CAM offers professional conferences, workshops, a legislative advocacy network, an annual salary survey and other services to some 225 California member institutions, including zoos, natural history museums and art museums. Members range from museums run entirely by volunteers to institutions with annual budgets of more than $1 million, according to executive coordinator Teri Knoll.

Knoll said her goals include establishing a central data base of Orange County arts organization contacts and patrons, and urging the state Legislature to require “M” (for museum) signs near appropriate off-ramps of all major highways. CAM does not have a history of involvement in more controversial issues, such as censorship.

Knoll assumed her post last fall, at the same time the Natural History Museum announced that CAM’s office space was needed for museum purposes. Then a resident of Tustin Ranch (she since has moved to Aliso Viejo), Knoll decided to relocate the association to Orange County. She called Keller, who had worked closely with CAM during his years in Los Angeles, and he agreed the Bowers would donate office space and utilities. CAM is otherwise independent of the museum, paying for all its own equipment and services.

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Orange County members of CAM include the Laguna Art Museum, the Decorative Arts Study Center in San Juan Capistrano, the Fullerton Museum Center, the Muckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton, the Museum of Anthropology at Cal State Fullerton, the Severin Wunderman Museum in Irvine and the Huntington Beach Center for the Arts scheduled to open in the spring. The Newport Harbor Art Museum is reinstituting its lapsed membership, Knoll says.

Knoll, 35, is a former special programs coordinator at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles, where she did educational outreach. She also has served as curatorial coordinator for the California Afro-American Museum in Los Angeles and has worked with the Art Brazil Society, which arranges exchanges between artists in Los Angeles and Sao Paulo.