Joe Noriel, president of the Petaluma Museum Association, is planning to step down after five years spent leading the museum into an era of higher visibility.
Noriel described his time as president as "one of the most incredible experiences of my life."
In a message in the association's newsletter, he reflected fondly on some of the exhibits he brought to the museum, which illustrated to him "the unyielding power of the human spirit."
Those exhibits included one on the holocaust, another about astronauts, and another featuring the Vietnam War and local veterans.
Noriel said he decided it was time to move on from the "all-consuming" volunteer position in order to spend more time with his family. In addition to the hours spent working on museum projects, Noriel works during the day as a credit and collections manager.
He will also be turning his attention to a nonprofit that he's started, called History Connection. Among other things, the nonprofit is working to bring the Vietnam Memorial Traveling Wall to Lucchesi Park in October.
Noriel became very involved with local veterans groups through his work at the museum, something he plans to continue when he leaves. He'll also stay involved with the museum as part of the exhibits team.
Noriel has been president of the museum since 2008. Under his leadership, the museum brought in national traveling exhibits, such as one on Elvis and another on pirates. "It's been an amazing experience. So much has happened from when I started," he said. "We took a small-town museum and brought it into the national spotlight."
Early into Noriel's presidency, some criticized those exhibits for costing too much and not being focused enough on Petaluma. They pointed to the fact that the museum lost money between 2009 and 2011.
But Noriel said those expenses were necessary to update the museum's infrastructure and added that the organization's finances now seem to be back on track, with the museum making a "small" profit in the first half of the 2012-13 fiscal year.
Much of the dissent seems to have died down since then as exhibits have drawn big crowds to the museum. Noriel estimates that roughly 60,000 visitors have come to experience the museum's exhibits in the last four years.
"Visibility was our number one goal," he said.
On Tuesday night, the association's new president was elected: Faith Ross, current secretary of the association's executive committee.
"I'm really excited for Faith to take over," Noriel said. "She's really top-notch." Noriel added that Ross will be the museum's first black president.
Ross has lived in Petaluma for more than 35 years and first got involved with the museum through the group Petaluma Blacks for Community Development.
For years, she helped the group put on exhibits at the museum for Black History Month. She said the exhibit used to be relegated to a corner of the museum, but then Noriel had the idea of featuring a black history exhibit called "Journey of Faith."
Ross said the stars seemed aligned, laughingly adding that even her first name was part of the show.
"I got involved and we used the whole downstairs for the exhibit," she said.
In addition to her work with the museum and Petaluma Blacks for Community Development, Ross is also on the county commission on human rights and teaches Sunday School at Petaluma Christian Church.
She says her goal is to "continue to strengthen the museum's financial position by reaching out to businesses in our community that are not currently involved with the museum, as well as reaching more of the families and individuals who live in Petaluma and surrounding area."
She also hopes to bring in exhibits highlighting some of Petaluma's minority groups, including the Spanish, Jewish, Italian and Japanese communities.
"(I'm interested in) anything that helps us get to know each other as a community," she said.
(Contact Jamie Hansen at jamie.hansen@ar guscourier.com.)
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