From 5/15/08 Press Release:
Leslie Greene Bowman, director of Winterthur Museum & Country Estate in Delaware, was today named the next president and chief executive of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the private, nonprofit corporation that owns and operates Monticello.
Bowman, 51, will succeed Daniel P. Jordan, Monticello’s chief executive since 1985, who announced last year that he would step down in November.
“Leslie is joining Monticello at an inflection point,” said Alice W. Handy, chair of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. “The most important education initiative undertaken since the Foundation acquired Monticello in 1923 is about to be launched. She’s the perfect person to take our exciting plans forward.”
Handy referred to the $55 million Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center and Smith Education Center. More than five years in the making, the project is scheduled to open in November. The ambitious new, 42,000-square-foot facility at Monticello will remind visitors of Jefferson’s role in the founding of the American republic and how the “self-evident” truths of liberty he expressed continue to change the modern world.
“The stewardship of this world heritage site is an immense responsibility,” Bowman said. “I’m thrilled and honored to be entrusted with leading the Foundation in its mission to preserve Jefferson’s home and advance his ideas around the world.”
Bowman also launched Winterthur’s first traveling exhibitions, helping to increase national awareness of the museum’s exceptional collections. Winterthur’s exhibitions, such as the highly acclaimed “American Vision,” have been displayed at venues across the United States, including the National Gallery of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the St. Louis Art Museum, and many others.
Bowman serves, by presidential appointment, on the Committee for the Preservation of the White House. She is also on the boards of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Historic St. Mary’s City in Maryland. She served five years on the Accreditation Commission of the American Association of Museums and recently rotated off the board of the Association of Art Museum Directors. Before joining Winterthur, Bowman was the director of the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyo. From 1980 to 1997, she served in the decorative arts department of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, rising to become head curator of decorative arts and assistant director of exhibitions.
Bowman succeeds Jordan whose 24 years as president of the Foundation realized many significant accomplishments.
“Dan’s tenure is a case study in transformational leadership,” said Chairman Handy. “Over the last quarter century, the Foundation realized numerous achievements measured by the ‘illimitable freedom of the human mind.’”
Bowman will begin her new role on November 1. She received her bachelor’s degree from Miami University in her home state of Ohio where she studied American history and art history. She earned her master of arts degree in early American culture from the Winterthur Museum Program at the University of Delaware.
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation owns and operates Monticello, the mountaintop home of Thomas Jefferson. As a private, nonprofit organization, the Foundation receives no regular federal or state budget support for its twofold mission of preservation and education. About a half million people visit Monticello each year.
