VENTURA COUNTY NEWS : Museum Gets a Leader : Culture: The county history and art institute picks its own curator as director to manage next phase of growth.

They looked to the East Coast and beyond, then chose one of their own.

The trustees of the Ventura County Museum of History and Art selected Tim Schiffer, the current curator, as the new director of the museum after the much-heralded Ed Robings retires Sept. 30.

“We felt he was the best by far, and he’s in the stirrups already,” trustee William Orcutt said. The vote was unanimous, he said.

Schiffer, 44, who has been the museum’s curator since 1992, beat out candidates from London, the East Coast and Canada.

“It’s a real vote of confidence that they know me so well and still voted in my favor,” he said.

In a decade under Robings, the 86-year-old museum has evolved from small and provincial to nationally acclaimed with an annual budget of $600,000 and eight full-time employees.

The museum collects local memorabilia and historical books and documents. It also displays art work and crafts, old tools and farm equipment--just about anything that provides insight into the past.

Robings said he will leave the museum in good hands, because Schiffer is well-prepared to move the modest Main Street institution into its next phase of development.

“He’s bright and he has a good background,” Robings said. “He might do things differently than I do, but that’s good for the institution.”

Despite their common objectives, the two men could hardly be more different in demeanor. Robings, 70, gestures largely and talks loudly, while the younger Schiffer is self-effacing and his actions measured.

“I don’t think anyone expects me to be a carbon copy of Ed. I do things my way, and he did things his way,” Schiffer said. “The museum is at a different place than it was 10 years ago, and I will be building on what Ed has already done.”

But he is fully aware of the differences between the job he is leaving and the one he is taking. His curator’s position is hands-on and exhibit-oriented, whereas the director’s position is managerial and administrative.

“I initially wasn’t going to apply for the job because I didn’t want to go into an administrative role,” Schiffer said. “But the more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be a real challenge for me and good for the museum.”

Schiffer said that he has already done some fund-raising for specific exhibits.

His new position will include more of the same. He will also focus on increasing visitation--it is now about 70,000 per year--to 100,000.

Schiffer said he will also work on doubling the square footage of the museum, which is across the street from the San Buenaventura Mission.

“We are desperate for more storage space,” he said.

In one project, the museum has already raised $400,000 to build an off-site center to display 2,000 pieces of farm equipment, some now stored behind the museum.

“We have to be careful and make sure we don’t commit ourselves to more than we can support,” Schiffer said.

Schiffer specialized in painting to get a bachelor’s degree at Yale and a master’s at UC Santa Barbara, and said he is devoted to Ventura County history.

“It’s really fascinating, these community cultures that we haven’t collected before,” he said, touching the rough cloth of a baseball uniform from the 1940s. “It’s like archeology.”

Schiffer was the project director for the museum’s largest expansion in 1997, a $175,000 renovation of the main gallery called “Ventura County in the New West.”

The exhibit, which won an award from the American Assn. for State and Local History, traces the progress of the county from the time Native Americans inhabited the area in large numbers to the present day.

Schiffer is especially proud of a spiffed-up Duro car from 1910 that was borrowed from a man in Camarillo.

“We get very excited about these things,” he said.