Director Is Hired For Tampa Art Museum

The Tampa Museum of Art will have a new leader when it opens in a year.

The museum's board of trustees announced Friday it has hired Todd Smith as the museum's executive director. Smith had been executive director of the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, S.C.

Smith, who will start his new job Oct. 6, replaces Ken Rollins, who retired in July after almost three years as interim executive director.

The hiring comes at a time of dramatic change for the museum, which is building a 66,000-square-foot building along the downtown riverfront near the site of its former building, which was demolished this year. The new museum is scheduled to be finished in the fall of 2009.

The new building and additional space should help raise the museum's profile. Board members say they are looking to Smith to use that momentum to make the museum a major arts destination, stabilize funding, organize popular and significant exhibits, and increase attendance.

"He's going to have a lot of challenges and opportunities," said Ed Waller, a member of the museum's board of trustees and the head of its search committee.

The museum has been looking for a new director for 12 months. A search firm identified a couple of dozen candidates, which was winnowed to five people brought in for interviews.

Waller said Smith impressed the search committee with his enthusiasm, vision and extensive arts background.

"He's going to have pretty free rein, based on his knowledge and experience, to make the museum successful," Waller said.

Smith was executive director of Gibbes from March 2006 until he unexpectedly announced in late March that he would resign his $155,000-a-year position April 1, according to a story in The Post and Courier of Charleston. The story said he would stay with the museum as director of special projects through June 30.

"Todd says that his heart just isn't in it anymore," Eric Friberg, first vice president of the board for Gibbes, told The Post and Courier. Gibbes officials couldn't be reached Friday.

According to the Tampa Museum of Art, during Smith's tenure with Gibbes the museum was recognized by the South Carolina Arts Commission as a top arts organization in the state, and government and volunteer support and major donations increased.

"I look forward to building upon the successes of the museum and ushering in the opening of the museum's new home," Smith is quoted as saying in the museum's release announcing his hiring. He couldn't be reached Friday.

In addition to his stint at Gibbes, the 42-year-old Smith has held executive positions at the Knoxville Museum of Art in Tennessee and The Plains Art Museum in Fargo, N.D. He also has been curator at museums in Charlotte, N.C.; Dayton, Ohio; and Bloomington, Ind.

He has a bachelor's degree from Duke University and a master's from Indiana University, and is working toward a doctorate in art history from Indiana University.

Waller declined to release Smith's salary.