Leading by example

SELF

PORTRAIT

Date and place of birth:

Sept. 26, 1968, in Olympia, Wash.

Occupation:

Deputy director of operations and administration, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Family:

Wife Stacy, daughters Madison and Eleanor

My favorite tennis players of all time are

Andre Agassi and Rafael Nadal.

People who knew me in high school would say

I was a nerd.

My advice for fathers is

work can be consuming and will always be there. Your kids’ “firsts” are irreplaceable.

Being the middle sibling was

terrific.

I was always the peacemaker, and I got to watch my older brother make all the mistakes.

Something I would like to know more about is

cutting-edge contemporary art.

What I miss most about Washington:

My family, and the smell of the ocean.

My favorite spot inside the museum is

the view from the north bridge - and I’m totally in love with the chiller room.

The last book I read was

Dracula.

I actually listened to it, but I call that reading. The last book I actually read with my eyes was Tribal Leadership, by Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright.

The question I get asked the most is

“What do you think?”

A word to sum me up:

inquisitiveBENTONVILLE - Rod Bigelow has a lot on his mind.

Bigelow is the deputy director of operations and administration at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. He’s the only one the museum has ever had, and as such, he leads the following teams: culinary, facilities, finance, human resources, information technology, retail, security, and trails and grounds.

Every week, he’s interacting with hundreds of people, and that doesn’t include the more than 595,000 visitors who came to Crystal Bridges during its first year of operation.

“He has an ability to make you feel like you’ve been heard, which is pretty important in this business,” says Rock Hushka, the curator of contemporary and Northwest art at the Tacoma (Wash.) Art Museum. “The museum world is about maintaining positive working relationships under a variety of circumstances, and [he thrives] because of his temperament. He’s a good spirit who leads by example.”

Bigelow, a young-looking 44-year-old with a kindsmile, has the ideal personality for his job, which comes from him being a middle child.

He’s the guy who effortlessly connects with people, using his quick wit to win people over and then earning their appreciation by pushing them to maximize their own potential - without ever crossing over from “supportive” to “overbearing.”

“He was a calming influence for all of us” at the Tacoma Art Museum, says Janeanne Upp, today the president of the High Desert Museum in Bend, Ore. “He was great to strategize with, and I relied on him tremendously, because he’s smart and affable. He’s a wonderful leader with a wicked sense of humor.”

Bigelow spent his first 39 years in Washington state, going back and forth between for-profit and not-for-profit institutions before becoming the chief operating officer of the Toledo Museum of Art in 2008. It was there that he worked under future Crystal Bridges executive director Don Bacigalupi.

Following Bacigalupi’s departure for Arkansas, Bigelow spent a year as the interim executive director in Toledo before deciding to come to Bentonville. He joined the museum’s staff in October 2010, just over a year before the museum opened its doors to the public on Nov. 11, 2011 - one year ago, today.

“Around here, we talk about Crystal Bridges years being like dog years, so if you ask me how long I’ve been here, it’s only been a couple years, but it seems like 20,” he says with a laugh. “It’s such a great feeling [to have made it through the planning and first year], a badge of honor.”

There’s no big party planned for the museum’s one-year anniversary, Bigelow says, just a quiet celebration on Monday for staff members. That’s understandable, given the exhausting level of work that went into getting the museum up and running, but it would be equally understandable if the staff partied like Andy Warhol at Studio 54.

After all, it takes a rather critical eye to judge the museum’s year as anything less than a major triumph.The museum drew more than 595,000 visitors (through Nov. 4), a figure that demolished estimates made prior to its opening.

Still, there’s much work to be done. There are plans for the next year, plans for the next three to five years, and plans that go as far out as 100 years.

Bigelow will be the one who will shape those futures, by guiding the leaders in all the departments he oversees. He’ll do it with encouragement, with humor, and by asking the tough questions that make people consider all the ramifications of potential decisions.

“Rod is a remarkable person and an ideal addition to our programming,” says Sandy Edwards, Crystal Bridges’ deputy director of museum relations. “He is the one who guides our strategic planning. His thoughtfulness and patience have really been a big reason we’re at this point.”

THE MIDDLE CHILD

Bigelow was a good student as a kid.

He wasn’t a genius - still isn’t, he’s quick to point out - but he succeeded in school because he was a hard worker, someone who didn’t need anyone pressuring him to give a maximum effort.

This work ethic applied outside of the classroom. He played soccer and made himself a valuable asset to his youth and high school teams through the sheer force of effort.

Today, Bigelow gets up at 4:45 a.m. five days a week to take part in something called “boot camp.” It’s as intense as it sounds, and a big part of the reason why he’s so slim. (True to his encouraging nature, Bigelow checks up on the progress of others’ workout routines during an interview.)

“He’s kind of an overachiever,” says his father, Keith Bigelow. “He’s diligent and relatively intelligent, but like myself, he’s not a wizard.He just will always do better than the average Joe with what he’s got [because of] his willingness to put out the extra effort. That just came natural to him.”

Bigelow was born and raised around Olympia, Washington’s capital. In infancy, he survived a bout with spinal meningitis, one which he neither remembers nor left any lasting effects on his health.

Bigelow was the middle of three brothers, which he says undoubtedly played a major role in shaping his personality. It made him a peacemaker, and developed his sense of humor.

“I have two brothers, and you can’t help climbing a tree and being shot by a BB gun from your brother,” he says. “You gotta laugh at some points.”

Humor has been an important part of Bigelow’s career; in fact, he views making the mood lighter as one of his work responsibilities.

Colleagues, present and past, rave about the guy’s comedic timing. It’s sometimes doing a thing like wearing a funny hat to a meeting, says Toledo Museum of Art director of development Susan Palmer, but most often it’s humor that’s woven into everyday conversations - often at his own expense.

“His sense of humor made every meeting, every situation, delightful,” Palmer says. “He was self-deprecating when we all knew he was smart, organized, and strategically minded. He could defuse difficult situations withhis delightful sense of humor, and you need that when you manage [museums].”

Behind the sense of humor is a guy who has an intense work ethic, someone who didn’t complain during the exhausting months leading up to Crystal Bridges’ opening. Nor are you likely to find him uttering a word of complaint when, at the end of a workday, there’s an important meetand-greet with fundraisers and dignitaries.

Bigelow doesn’t make a big deal out of his efforts, though. Nor is he likely to tout the nice things he does, Palmer says - things like delivering a gift from the museum on Christmas Eve to a donor or simply stooping low to make it easier to communicate with elderly patrons during winedinners.

Instead, what comes out is a guy who cares about the people around him - and who shows that through laughter.

“[Humor] helps me through a lot of the stress,” he says. “I try to connect people, and sometimes people connect through humor. It makes it easier to have a conversation.

“Especially when you come from a financial background, a lot of people in arts organizations don’t really get that part of the business. Making it lighter than it has to be is part of what I do.”

A NEW WORLD

When Bigelow first broke into the world of art museums, he had no idea what he was getting into.

“I thought, ‘OK, there’s abunch of paintings on a wall. What do these people do all the time? What’s the big deal?’” he recalls. “You quickly learn there’s much to do.”

Bigelow didn’t have much interest in art when he was a kid, nor did he aspire to work at a museum. His family occasionally went to museums, but they were never art museums; they were much more likely to go to natural history museums.

When he began attending Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, art was the furthest thing from his mind. He loved science, particularly biology, and was planning to major in it until late in the game, when he switched to business administration.

“Calculus would be one [reason for the change], and the other was I thought, ‘Why pigeonhole yourself? If yougo into business, you can do it anywhere, in any kind of industry,’” he says. “It didn’t have anything to do with the arts.”

Bigelow graduated in 1990, in the midst of a terrible economy, and says he had to pay to get his first job with a telecommunications company in Washington. He began in the accounting department, and ultimately became a regional operations manager.

By 1997, he was commuting 90 minutes each way, and needed to get a job that would allow him to spend more time with his wife, Stacy, and their newborn daughter, Madison. (The couple have another daughter, Eleanor.) So he answered a newspaper ad for the Tacoma Art Museum, and was shocked when he was hired.

His role was to help develop the museum professionally, so it could achieve more. This meant he had to learn about philanthropy and the arts and connecting with a community, all new concepts to him.

“I learned by doing and just rationalizing through the process,” Bigelow says. “A lot of what I do is intuitive, but only now it’s because I have experience. At the time I was clueless; I wouldn’t have given myself the job.”

Bigelow stayed in Tacoma until 2005; at the end of his time there, he was the museum’s chief financial officer and its interim executive director. He served as the project manager when the museum moved into a new, 50,000-square-foot facility.

It was a process that took several years, and required Bigelow to constantly communicate with the architect, contractors and the museum’s board of directors. He had to deal with a bond issue, which helped finance the museum.

“His ability to adapt was amazing,” Upp says. “Rod has shown he can do anything he set his mind to. He is, and always will be, one of the bright spots in my career.”

PLANNING AHEAD

Bigelow has twice been an interim executive director, which he says is either a bad omen for his bosses, or else a sign that he can fill in the role pretty well.

The second time came in Toledo (2009-10), after Bacigalupi left for Crystal Bridges. Bigelow went to Toledo in 2008, after a 2 1/2-year stint at the Art Institute of Seattle, a return to the for-profit world.

His experience with forprofit institutions plays an important role in his work at Crystal Bridges. He’s involved with managing the museum’s endowment, and making sure the museum lives within its means while continually striving to increase support for its projects.

“There’s definitely a place for the for-profit side to play a role in operating nonprofits,” he says. “You can’t operate if you’re not fiscally sustainable and accountable for the dollars people give you.”

Bigelow was asked to go to Toledo by Bacigalupi, whom he had met a half-decade previously. It was a challenging move, Bigelow says, uprooting his family and moving them across the country.

Local economic struggles hit the Toledo Museum of Art hard shortly after Bigelow arrived. Budgets had to be cut and employees had to be let go, but Bigelow managed to keep the budget balanced.

As interim executive director, the museum ended the year with a surplus of $1.2 million.

“He often spoke to the rest of the staff,” says Toledo’s chief curator, Carolyn Putney, who split the interim executive director duties with Bigelow. “They could have all become demoralized, but he was able to get everybody to come together and find a solution out of it. ... And he talked to every person who was let go, rather than sending them to [human resources].”

The move to Arkansas has been a smooth one for his family, Bigelow says. The family lives in Rogers, and he rides his bike to work a few times a week so that hisdaughter can take his car to school.

He’s interested in being an executive director one day, but not having an art degree will be a major obstacle toward making this happen. That’s down the road, though.

For now, Bigelow’s focus is on year No. 2 (and beyond) at Crystal Bridges, and how he can help the museum reach its full potential - by helping those who work there.

“Most of all, I try to help others challenge what they think and push them to another level,” he says. “My whole mantra is putting people around you who are creative and interesting and then trying to coax them to the next level.”