Bowers Hires Operations Administrator

The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art has hired a top administrator to handle daily operations and management of the financially struggling institution to give Bowers President Peter C. Keller more time to focus on board development, fund-raising, exhibit planning and museum growth.

Vickie C. Byrd, a business professional with a master’s degree in clinical psychology, will report to Keller effective today in the newly created position of chief administrative officer.

Byrd previously was business manager of the Irvine-based Lobel, Winthrop & Broker law firm, and held a similar post for an Irvine realty capital company.

She begins her new job one week to the day after the resignation of Margaret Mooney, the Bowers’ former vice president of marketing and sales and the latest of at least half a dozen officials who have left the Bowers in the past 18 months.

Mooney’s resignation came a day after the Santa Ana City Council voted to continue funding the Bowers at the current level of $1.2 million annually.

A 1987 agreement would have reduced the city’s funding of the museum, whose officials have recently said the agreement was made when the museum was running on a much smaller annual budget of $1.5 million. Its budget today is about $3.5 million.