PORT TOWN-SEND — A new director of the Port Townsend Marine Science Center will take over
Aug. 1.
Janine Boire — who has served as executive director of the Discovery Science Center in Boise, Idaho, since 2004 — was selected by the nonprofit’s board of directors last month to replace Anne Murphy, who announced in January that she would retire at the age of 61.
“I feel very good about this,” said board chair Linda Dacon on Tuesday.
“Janine had an impressive background and has executive director background, which is what we were looking for.”
Murphy served as the head of the center for 24 of its 30 years of existence.
There will be no overlap between the two directors, since Murphy is retiring July 31.
A public celebration of Murphy’s tenure will be held on that date, though the exact time and place have yet to be determined, Dacon said.
Dacon declined to disclose Boire’s annual salary but said it was “a little more” than the $60,000 Murphy was earning.
Dacon said about 22 people applied for the position, and four were called in for interviews.
The search committee included Dacon, board members Stephen Cunliffe and Eric Harrington, and citizen representatives Al Bergstein and Eveleen Muehlethaler.
The applicants were geographically diverse and came from all over the nation, Dacon said.
Boire began her career as a high school intern at Pacific Science Center in Seattle in 1978 and moved to different positions over the next 12 years, including serving as volunteer coordinator, group sales coordinator and special events manager, according to her resume.
After leaving Pacific Science Center, she was the founding director of the ¡Explora! Science Center in Albuquerque, N.M., where she tripled the capital funding for the center from $4 million to $12 million and took the operating budget from zero to $1 million in three years, her resume said.
In 1997, Boire was awarded a fellowship for graduate study at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. After completing her master’s in public policy the next year, she worked at Princeton before working for Leadership for Environment and Development International in New York City.
In 2009, Murphy earned the Magnuson Puget Sound Legacy Award for exemplary service to Puget Sound and its marine life.
Murphy received the Eleanor Stopps Environmental Leadership Award in 2006, a marine science center award that recognizes people on the North Olympic Peninsula who are stewards of the environment and have demonstrated leadership in efforts to protect the natural world.
The marine science center is located at Fort Worden State Park and provides educational programs and exhibits centered around the study and preservation of the Salish Sea.
It has seven full-time staff members and relies heavily on volunteers.
For more information, visit www.ptmsc.org/index.html, phone 360-385-5582 or 800-566-3932, or email info@ptmsc.org.
Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
