Joel Bartsch: Exhibit Types at the Houston Museum of Natural Science

Friday, February 10, 2023

Exhibit Types at the Houston Museum of Natural Science

The president and CEO of the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) since 2004, Joel A. Bartsch is an experienced mineralogist who has contributed his expertise to multiple museums throughout the United States. To increase interest in the museum, Joel Bartsch collaborated with the board of directors to add new exhibits and promote preexisting ones.

The HMNS hosts multiple exhibition types, covering different disciplines and mediums. Its permanent exhibitions, like the Cockrell Butterfly Center or Dinosaurs of Antarctica 3D, offer opportunities for visitors to learn about entomology or paleontology interactively. The Rockwell Butterfly Center is modeled after a rainforest, where visitors can walk through and witness the butterflies living there up close. Dinosaurs of the Antarctic 3D uses holograms to display the region's fauna as living specimens rather than fossils.

The museum also hosts rotating exhibits from around the world. From May 2022 to June 2023, visitors can admire the Dreher Masterworks, a collection of gems carved by the Dreher family in Idar-Oberstein, Germany. This exhibit differs from the HMNS’ permanent one, the Cullen Hall of Gems and Minerals, by highlighting rare gemstones like rubies, sapphires, and topazes. To preserve the exhibits’ contents for future generations, the museum forbids flash photography within and requires arrangements beforehand if members of the press wish to film there.

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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.