blue water woman--fall 2014

professions
susan bennett, port huron
living history
by Patti Samar
Chat with Susan Bennett for just five minutes and she will gush on
and on about the wide variety of activity taking place at the Port Huron
Museum and its satellite locations at the Huron Lightship, the Fort
Gratiot Light Station and the Thomas Edison Depot Museum.
And in the next five minutes she will heap praise upon the museum’s
board of directors, its volunteers and its staff and keep none of the credit
for herself.
Bennett has been employed with the museum since 2009 and now
serves as its executive director. A key to her success in her leadership role is
that she thrives on the energy and enthusiasm of the museum staff and its
volunteers.
“Our board is incredible and supportive,” she said. “We have only six
full-time staff members, so they are very busy people.”
As the executive director, Bennett is responsible for the museum’s
financial stability, its marketing and fundraising, among many other varied
duties.
“I love the variety in the job,” she said. “Every phone call is a new
project. I’m either finishing up a newsletter or a postcard, or I’m shopping
at Joann’s for items needed for a special event.”
No one is more surprised than Bennett that her career landed her in a
position at a museum. She spent much of her professional career serving as
a manufacturer’s representative in the retail industry. Though she doesn’t
have a professional background in all things historical, her appreciation for
the museum’s mission is obvious.
“The museum is human contact with our past,” she said. “As a society,
we worry about technology taking over. You visit a museum and you’re
looking an expert in the eye and that interaction can be sadly lacking in
other areas of our lives.
“We’re storytellers…we tell stories and sometimes we have great pieces of
old stuff to help tell our story.”
Bennett notes that, in terms of her leadership at the museum, she is most
proud of the fact that, under her guidance, the museum has weathered
-- and survived -- some very difficult financially turbulent times.
“I’m most proud of the fact that we’re solvent and that we accomplished
that without major upheaval,” she said.
She noted that the two events of which she is most proud include the
“Storm of 1913” anniversary that the museum produced on its own in
2013, and Sandfest, which took place at the Fort Gratiot Light Station in
2013 and 2014.
“The Storm of 1913 was a wonderful collaboration with other
organizations that helped us tell our story,” she said. “It brought more than
10,000 visitors over four months. We had descendants here from as far
away as Tennessee. It was such a great story and it was our story to tell.”
Sandfest, she noted, was produced primarily by the Friends of the Fort
Gratiot Light, as a fundraiser. The event brought visitors from across the
state of Michigan and beyond. “The committee handled all of it,” she said.
“It is something to be really proud of. To build that from nothing is an
indication of their dedication.
“It brought all of these ‘new friends’ here and I’m sure many of them will
be back to visit the Blue Water Area.”
Though “economic development” is not in her formal job description,
Bennett understands the impact the museum has on the local economy
and embraces that part of her job, along with every other facet.
“I’m incredibly lucky,” she said. “I never don’t want to come to work.”
8 fall 2014 BlueWaterWoman.com