GOODBYE DALI Part 9: You’re Fired (#92): All seemed quiet when I got back from the trip to Spain. The Surrealist Masquerade Ball went well. I had accepted a $6,000 cut in pay in April and a demotion to Director of Development. The summer attendance figures were better than expected and we were getting ready for a busy holiday season.
Mr. Morse (Ren) was President in place of Jim Healey and was working on a a restructure of the operating entities of the Museum. The Board of the Salvador Dali Institute had been expanded to 15 members.
I was trying to raising $360,000 to qualify for a $240,000 matching grant from the State of Florida to establish an Endowment Fund, but it was slow going. The deadline was year end. In September, the Board of the Institute authorized using funds from the Accessions Fund to qualify for the State grant. Ren had expressed concerns, but went along with the Board in the end.
By the time I was fired, I had only raised $75,000 of the $360,000 needed and the balance would come from the Accessions Fund, which was very dear to Mr. Morse’s heart. It would be replaced eventually, but again Ren seemed to always expect the worst. I think that me pushing for the $240,000 from the State at the expense of a loan from the Accessions Fund, was the last straw. Also, it would still be a year before we received the first $600,000 from the State as a Major Cultural Institution.
All in all, things at the Museum were in good shape, but Mr. Morse always seemed to expected the situation to get worse, not better. I never was able to establish a solid relationship with Ren. I was either moving too fast, or not getting enough done.
I remember Ren telling me a joke, “A young Bull and an old Bull were standing on a hill, looking down at a herd of cows. The young Bull said they should run down and screw one. The old Bull said they should walk down and screw them all.” Brad tried to give me some advice about how to get along with his father. Ren had decided I had a Passive/Aggressive Personality Disorder.
Tom James, who was Treasurer did everything he could to help me. I heard that he had said that he would resign if I were fired, but I wouldn’t want him to do that.
I was called out of a Staff meeting in early December to take a call from Ren, He basically said that one of us had to go. If I didn’t resign, he would leave the Museum. What could I do? This was his life’s work, and just 4 years for me. “I understand Ren. I’ll leave.” I went back to the Staff meeting, “I was just fired. I’ll miss all of you.” I picked up my note pad and left.
I wasn’t really mad at Ren. By this time I understood him well enough to know that he was trying to hold on, and he felt threatened by me. Ren gave me the chance of a lifetime. If I knew what was going to happen, I would have done it all over again, except I would have paid a lot more attention to Linda.
The one person I was angry with was Marshall Rousseau. I’d know for a while that he wanted my job and I was sure he wasn’t trying to calm Ren down, probably just the opposite. But, I thought Marshall might be a better fit for Ren, since Ren wasn’t threatened by him.
I never worked in St. Petersburg again. I had been a part of the first new office project to start the redevelopment of downtown. I had watched Park Bank grow and implode. I had watched first hand the efforts to get a baseball team. I had box seats for the first Lightning game at what was then called the Thunder Dome. I helped start the Sunshine City Jaycees, the Sam Robinson Music Festival, and the Suncoast Children’s Dream Fund. I had my home in Pass-a-grille Beach.
The photos are two of my favorites. The one of me with Eleanor and Ren reminds there were great times. The other was taken after the Dali Museum was accepted as a Major Cultural Institution. Andy Maas, with the Tampa Museum of Art, Larry Ruggerio with the Ringling Museum of Art, Michael Milkovich, of the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts, and me. The future seemed bright!
I have a few more St. Petersburg stories to tell before I take a job in Tampa and pick up my career track with “ANOTHER DOOMED ADVENTURE”.