Rich Cherry is the founder and managing partner at Museum Operations, a museum start-up, operations, technology, and construction management consultancy. Most recently, Rich was the deputy director of The Broad, an award-winning contemporary art museum in downtown Los Angeles. The Broad opened to rave reviews in 2015 and immediately joined the list of the100 most-attended art museums in the world. At the Broad, he was responsible for the museum's operations, including visitor services, collections management, information technology, finance, retail, security, human resources, marketing and communications, parking operations, and facilities. Prior to opening, Rich managed the planning, design, and construction of The Broad, its parking structure, and the adjacent outdoor plaza and streetscape. To design The Broad as an innovative visitor experience, Rich also initiated and implemented mobile ticketing and mobile retail systems, as well as a mobile audio app with contextually aware content. He also designed and implemented an award-winning program for visitor services floor staff utilizing a custom online learning management system to train a diverse team of associates in security, customer service, art, and architecture. Previously, Cherry was the founding director of the Balboa Park Online Collaborative (BPOC), a consortium of 27 cultural organizations working together to facilitate and execute the use of online technology in the museums, cultural arts, and science institutions in Balboa Park, San Diego. He also served as the director of operations at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, where he oversaw more than $90 million in ongoing construction; and, as the chief information officer at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Rich serves as co-chair for MuseWeb (formerly Museums and the Web), an international conference exploring the social, cultural, design, technological, economic, and organizational issues of museums in a digital world; he is also president of the MuseWeb Foundation, which he co-founded to accelerate innovation in cultural practice and business. Before his museum career, Rich worked in technology in banking and manufacturing, and as a field service engineer. He was also a commercial diver in the Gulf of Mexico and served six years in the United States Marine Corps.
Education and Outreach Manager at MuseWeb (she/her); Volunteer Program Coordinator; Director of Education at Long Beach Museum of Art and LBMA Downtown.During her time at LBMA, Alison developed and refined numerous community engagement programs including the award-winning KidsVisions art program designed to serve over 13,000 students per year from the Long Beach Unified School District; Art First specifically geared towards K-4 students; the Sunday Family ArtMaking series funded by the Port of Long Beach, Art Chat, the Mann Elementary School Art Partnership, Teacher Professional Development Workshops; Adult Art Workshops; the Emerging Artist Lecture Series; the robust Docent Program; Millikan High School's Museum Studies Program; and the tri-annual LBUSD student exhibitions in the Toyota Student Gallery. In addition to this, she co-organized the city of Long Beach's first "Black Comic Creator Day," a fruitful collaboration between small local businesses and LBMA's new Downtown location in celebration of Black artists.Alison is also a lecturer and online course developer for UC Berkeley Ext. and SUNY Empire. She earned her MA in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University, and her PhD from Binghamton University.
