Patti Sherman-Cisler is the new executive director of the Jewish Museum Milwaukee, a program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. She follows Kathie Bernstein, who has held the position since the museum’s opening in 2008. (See June 2015 Chronicle.)
Sherman-Cisler grew up in Whitefish Bay. She majored in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and earned a Master of Science in Business Management at Cardinal Stritch University.
Her previous jobs included starting the human resources department at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, directing human resources for the Milwaukee Public Museum and most recently being deputy director of operations at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan. She is married to Greg Cisler.
Chronicle editor Leon Cohen spoke with her on June 16. Selected and edited excerpts of the conversation follow.
The adaptation of different people to different cultures, their religious beliefs, their familial beliefs and systems, their adaptations to environments…. All of those things were fascinating.
I had hoped to work in the Milwaukee Public Museum, [but] there were not a lot of openings [and] not a lot of jobs in the field. So I had to get practical…
[After starting behind the counter at Real Chili] I learned about books and payroll… I was hired by [what was then called] the Performing Arts Center to do their payroll, and they asked me to start their first human resources department. So I did. I took classes and seminars… and I stayed there a little over nine years.
It was a fabulous place to work… When you are in HR, you get to learn about all sorts of departments — marketing, development, programming, operations — what it takes to run a cultural institution and the complexity of it.
I did a little stint in manufacturing after that [but] I didn’t have the same passion for going in there as I did at the Marcus Center. I found out that really mattered to me; it wasn’t just what I do, it’s where I do it.
How did it feel to work in the Milwaukee Public Museum?
I found out that I really loved business. It probably is a better fit for me. A lot of the museum professions are very exacting and often solitary, and I’m not. I thrive on interaction. And I really enjoyed the earned revenue business aspects of operating a museum.
And you still get to work with the curators and learn about what they’re doing. Product development for me was really fun there because we tried to base our products on mission.
What was your job like at the John Michael Kohler Art Center?
That job was also servicing all the earned revenue areas. I took great pleasure in trying to grow those, and I was successful with growing the rentals business and implementing the group sales program.
I also oversaw the administrative areas, human resources, information technology, finance, the volunteer department and the physical plant. So I got to grow within the job. I got to work with fantastically creative curators, to meet wonderful, creative, talented artists and to bring my business expertise to help grow the art center.
My husband and I decided to move back to the East Side of Milwaukee. We had been living in Ozaukee County, and I really missed the vibrancy and diversity of city life. So we moved here two years ago.
And I was exploring the neighborhood, and I saw there’s a Jewish museum here… The first special exhibit I saw was “Jews Who Rock,” and it was a fun exhibit.
But I was really taken with the permanent exhibit. It’s so well done. And I thought that the context of placing the Jewish story within the broader time frame of the human story was ingenious.
Then I came to see “Stitching History from the Holocaust” and was amazed at the quality of the exhibit and the profoundness of the story. That was a world-class exhibition.
So then I decided I was tired of commuting and I started looking for jobs. And I saw the JMM opening. So I applied, not knowing if my not being Jewish was going to be a problem.
I think the JMM board was looking for someone who had some marketing and fundraising and earned revenue experience. I hope to bring that to the table.
What will you be doing in your first weeks at the museum?
I need to learn the culture. When you come into a new job, especially in a leadership position, my philosophy is you don’t change things right away until you understand where you are and what the values are.
I will be meeting with the staff members and learning about their thoughts and plans. I hope to meet with each board member and the close friends of the museum as well as people at the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. And there are tasks that need to be done to help me get my feet wet.
The interviewing committee gave me the John Gurda book [“One People, Many Paths: A History of Jewish Milwaukee”], which is fascinating… I know there’s a lot I need to learn [but] I’m not a stranger to the Jewish faith. I do look forward to learning much more about the faith and the culture… I get to bring my cultural anthropology back into the fold.
Loading ...