Saying he feels refreshed and renewed after six months away from the role of President and General Manager at Center in the Square, Dr. Jim Sears is right back at it. He has succeeded his successor, Barry Henderson, who took the baton from Sears only at the beginning of the year.
Sears, now 69, said recently he does not know why Henderson, a former banker who had been involved with Center’s capital campaign previously, stepped down.
“I was really not involved in Barry’s decision to resign,” said Sears, who had kept his finger on the pulse at Center by acting as an advisor, a role he had agreed to fill until the end of 2014. Henderson’s background with fundraising at Center and his financial career experience were seen as assets at Center going forward; Sears was a former educator and college administrator for Virginia Western.
Now that the time off, said Sears, had “revived” him for the long haul …his own health will be a determining factor in how long he stays on this time. Sears had filled the leadership role for 20 years before stepping down in December 2013.
Sears said he got a call last week asking if he was ready to take over again. The answer, said the former educator, was yes. “I’m very excited about the opportunity to return to Center, to work with the organizations and the staff,” said Sears.
He left shortly after a 30-million dollar face-lift at the downtown Roanoke cultural landmark was completed, a remodeling that left more room for museums, revamped the atrium space and welcomed in the Harrison Museum of African-American Culture as a tenant. “We have a very bright future,” added Sears, who looks forward to more “aquarium-type programming” and other educational themes at member museums.
The Science Museum of Western Virginia is also gearing up for the first-ever Virginia Science Festival in October, a statewide event that will be centered in downtown Roanoke and in Blacksburg, where Virginia Tech is a partner.
“It looks to me like the future’s going to be as exciting as the last five years,” said Sears, who hasn’t put a timetable on any future departure from the President/GM role again. “I continue to have the excitement and inspiration about Center in the Square. You come back [from a hiatus] with a slightly different view of things.”
Sears feels good about the future; the extensive renovations and debut of the adjacent Market Square pedestrian plaza makes him feel Center in the Square tenants can help grow attendance figures again after they had taken a dramatic drop – down from around 600,000 annually to about half of that. He likes that people now wander in from the pedestrian plaza to the Center atrium – even if it’s just to cool off or to take a look at the fish tanks.
That gets them in the building, where they can peer up to see the museums or read about what’s new on the electronic message boards. “I think the marriage of Center and the Market Square and the merchants …its absolutely successful,” said Sears. “People that come to Roanoke say they haven’t see this anywhere else.”
By Gene Marrano
