Nancy Proctor stepping down as Chief Strategy Officer of The Peale, Baltimore’s ‘community museum’

After nearly eight years with various titles, Nancy Proctor is preparing to step down as Chief Strategy Officer of The Peale, Baltimore’s “community museum.”

The Peale’s Board of Directors has launched a nationwide search and set Sept. 30 as the deadline for applications from people interested in the position of Executive Director of the organization.

Proctor told the board in June that she wanted to step down once her successor is hired. She has said she will work with the board and staff to find the right candidate and help with the transition. The board is aiming to at least identify a new director by Jan. 1.

Proctor’s impending departure makes The Peale the latest cultural institution in Baltimore to seek a new leader. Others include the American Visionary Art Museum, Creative Alliance, Center Stage, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Walters Art Museum.

Proctor isn’t leaving to take another job, the way Christopher Bedford did when he left the BMA to become director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She said she felt it was time to turn the organization over to others.

“After nearly 8 years as the (re)founding Director of The Peale, it’s time for me to welcome new leadership to Baltimore’s Community Museum and demonstrate that what we’ve built together is a truly sustainable community anchor,” she said in a message posted on social media this week.

“The greatest joy of my career has been watching Baltimore’s creators use The Peale as a platform to do incredible things that I would never have thought of, and it has been a privilege to help them realize their visions,” she continued. “Now, I’m excited to see where a new Executive Director will take The Peale, and remain committed to supporting the organization through this important transition and beyond. This is an unparalleled opportunity to shape the next phase of The Peale’s 210-year legacy.”

The Peale is based in the oldest museum building in the United States, a city-owned landmark that was designed by Robert Cary Long Sr. and opened in 1814 and is considered the first “purpose-built” museum in the Northern Hemisphere.

A National Historic Landmark, The Peale’s building at 225 Holliday Street was designed by architect Robert C. Long Sr. for artist Rembrandt Peale, who operated it as a museum from 1814 to 1829. It then became Baltimore’s City Hall (1830 to 1875); one of its first public schools for African Americans (1878 to 1887); a mix of commercial and industrial uses (1888 to 1929), and Baltimore’s first municipal museum (1930 to 1997.)

After the city museum closed in 1997 due to budget cutbacks, its collection was transferred to the Maryland Historical Society, now the Maryland Center for History and Culture. The building was abandoned for 20 years before the start in 2017 of a five-year, $5.5 million renovation that led to its reopening in August of 2022.

The upgraded building now provides an accessible platform for artistic, scientific, and cultural projects where collaborators can take creative risks, connect with communities in Baltimore and beyond, and share their stories both in the historic Peale Museum building and online. The Peale also conducts a training and apprentice program for exhibition preparation and the historic preservation trades. It’s managed by a shared leadership team that’s separate from city government and its programming is driven by Baltimore’s creative communities.

Proctor joined The Peale in 2017 as its (re)founding director, spearheading its capital campaign and the building’s multi-year renovation. Under Proctor’s leadership, it includes community exhibition and programming space, a Lab for innovating museum practice, and the apprenticeship program.

Proctor had the title of founding director and Chief Executive Officer of The Peale from 2017 to 2020, but she changed her title from Chief Executive Officer to Chief Strategy Officer after switching to a shared leadership model in which several administrators collaborate to run the museum. She said the board posted her position as Executive Director to indicate to candidates that they would have wide latitude to rethink and reshape the organization. The Peale board is working with Livingston Associates as its search firm and has an eight-member search committee.

“In 2020, we moved to a shared leadership structure and I took the title of Chief Strategy Officer, “she said. “But…with this transition to new leadership, the board proposed, and I thought it was a very sensible thought, that a new person coming in should have the same kind of latitude that I had when I started with The Peale, to really think about a new vision and put together a plan to go after it, so we’ve decided to advertise it as Executive Director. But of course that person might also choose to work in a shared leadership structure. We just didn’t want to preempt that…I didn’t want to predetermine what the new Executive Director’s vision and plan might be for the organization.“

‘Innovative mission’

F. William Chickering, Peale Board President, reflected that “Proctor’s enthusiasm, passion, commitment, and collaborative spirit has led to the completion of a multi-million-dollar rehabilitation of the historic building and the implementation of an innovative mission to give new life to the old structure. Drawing on the Peale Museum’s storied past, Nancy has positioned The Peale to attract diverse and stimulating programming created by Baltimore’s communities. She has challenged all involved to live up to values of accessibility and inclusion.”

“The Peale has provided the most inspiring and rewarding challenges of my career, and the transformative opportunity to collaborate with Baltimore’s incredibly talented community of creators and culture keepers,” Proctor said. “I am grateful for the chance to work with such a visionary staff and board over the past 7 ½ years and proud of all we have accomplished with our partners from across the city and beyond. I know that under their stewardship The Peale will continue to go from strength to strength, and I’m excited to see what ground-breaking new directions it charts in its next chapter.”

A job description on The Peale’s website, thepeale.org/jobs/, states that the salary range is $75,000 to $105,000, plus medical insurance and retirement benefits. The current staff includes five full-time employees, five part-time employees and five apprentices. The Peale gets 6,000 visitors a year in person, and many more online.

In an interview this week, she said The Peale’s board already has received approximately two dozen applications but wanted to make one last push to get the word out about the transition.

“We’ve definitely advertised in places like the Association of African American Museums,” she said. “We’re definitely casting the net wide nationally, but also with special emphasis on Baltimore.”

Sustainable institution

Proctor said it was entirely her decision to give way to new leadership at this point in The Peale’s evolution.

“The plan has always been to start up The Peale and make it a sustainable cultural institution,” she said. “So the only way that we know [if it’s a success] is if I step away and it continues to thrive without me. That was, to be honest, a move that we started making as early as 2020, with the move toward shared leadership, to try to make sure that it would be sustainable beyond my leadership.”

After being reopened for two years, she said, “it felt like we had a good team in place and were in good financial shape, so it was a good moment to start to try to make that transition. By February, I will have been around for eight years. I think it’s really important that directors, and especially founders, not stay around past their sell-by date. Especially in an organization like The Peale, where the whole point is to really change and grow and respond to Baltimore’s community needs, it can be limiting to have a single person’s vision really driving the whole thing for too long.”

While discussing the organization’s future at a board meeting last summer, she said, she proposed that The Peale seek new leadership and the board members agreed. As part of that strategic planning effort, “we said it’s really important for The Peale to remain fresh and surprising, that we really think about reinventing the place every seven to 10 years. So the timing felt right for the institution. That was the main driver there.”

Proctor said she’s committed to staying through the transition or even beyond, if she can be of helpful and it makes sense with the new leader’s vision. She said she has certain projects she’d like to undertake, including a book with Dean Krimmel about the history of The Peale building and another book about her what she’s done at The Peale, but she’s not moving to another position elsewhere.

“I am 56 years old. I have been in museums for some 30 years. What am I going to do next? I’m not entirely sure. My number one focus is on getting this transition to go as smoothly as possible, to be as supportive in any way I can,” she said.

“My only hesitation” in stating a firm departure date, she said, is “I don’t want to preempt what [the new director] wants to do. It’s sensitive because I’m the founding director. There’s a certain gravitational pull.”

Proctor stressed that stepping down was her decision.

“This was something that I prompted,” she said. “Nobody is making me go away. We have the most wonderful board at The Peale and we all work really well together. There was a lot of pain and consternation when I said, ‘Look, I really think we need to start this transition.’ But I’m not going to know if what we’ve built is working until somebody else can pick up the reins and take it to the next level. That’s what we’re doing here. It’s simply the next chapter in The Peale Project. It’s not the end of anything.”

Proctor said she believes she’s leaving The Peale in good condition.

“That was a big reason for the timing,” she said. “Obviously, I didn’t want to hand over something that was still half-baked and I think it is in really good shape. We’re in the silent phase of an endowment campaign. It’s poised. I think it’s a nice platform for somebody to take and do something exciting with.”