Joel Bartsch: Message in a Bottle

Thursday, July 8, 2021

Message in a Bottle - A Unique Collection

Joel A. Bartsch has a background as an earth sciences curator and presently oversees Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) operations as CEO. Among the unique exhibits that Joel Bartsch helped coordinate in 2018 was Message in a Bottle, which brought focus to the personal collection of Living Lands & Waters founder Chad Pregracke.

Growing up along the Mississippi River in Illinois, Pregracke held various positions including commercial fisherman, shell diver, and barge hand. Over the years, he acquired an in-depth understanding of how human pollution and waste have impacted the river’s ecosystem. With Illinois government agencies unable to assist in a meaningful cleanup, he founded a nonprofit and launched a volunteer effort that has successfully removed more than 9 million pounds of trash from US waterways over the past quarter century.

The Message in a Bottle collection spans approximately 50 such artifacts that were discovered in rivers over the decades, in locations from Iowa to the Washington, D.C. area. These bottles have anthropological significance, as each reflects the efforts of an individual to communicate with others in a way determined by water currents and chance. Some of those who sent bottles with enclosed messages were simply interested in seeing how far they would travel and to what ultimate destination. Others contained prayers and universal messages, while some had an additional message added, as a form of waterborne chain letter.

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About Joel Bartsch

Since 2004, Joel A. Bartsch has led the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) as president and CEO. In this capacity, he coordinates and leads museum staff and curators in the creation and maintenance of immersive exhibits, implements renovation strategies, and promoting museum-wide leadership. Through these efforts and many others, Joel A. Bartsch has nearly doubled both the institution’s annual attendance and membership base. He also oversaw two major expansions at the museum that added more than 250,000 square feet of space.

Mr. Bartsch began gaining experience in museum leadership more than three decades ago, when he joined the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum as a curatorial assistant and assistant to the director. He held this role during his last years as a mining engineering student at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. From there, Mr. Bartsch took on staff roles at the Texas Memorial Museum and HMNS, curator of earth sciences at Lyman House Memorial Museum in Hawaii, and director and curator of the California State Mining & Mineral Museum.

Through these positions, Joel Bartsch gained extensive experience in everything from managing daily operations and directing fundraising efforts to writing corporate grant requests. He drew on this experience when he returned to HMNS as a curator, project manager, and director of earth sciences, the positions he held immediately prior to his current role as the president and CEO.