Carlos Gonzalez-Jaime knows he has a big job as new executive director of MOSAC, the SMUD Museum of Science and Curiosity in the old PG&E power station on Jibboom Street.
The elegant steam turbine facility is an inspired home for a science museum, but MOSAC has never been on easy street. Successor to the Discovery Museum Science and Space Center on Auburn Boulevard, MOSAC needed almost 15 years to move from pipe dream to reality.
When the museum finally welcomed visitors in November 2021, the region was still recovering from pandemic lockdowns.
Despite positive reviews, MOSAC ended its last fiscal year with declining attendance and a deficit that topped $500,000.
Some of the money problems resulted from COVID relief dollars running out. As for attendance, many residents are nervous about the economy, says Steve Hansen, president of the museum’s board and a former City Council member.
“People drive by on the freeway and they see the museum but they don’t come in,” Hansen says. “We want to spark people’s imagination with Carlos and our team to get off the freeway and come in. We call places like these amenities, but this is really much more. It is part of the civic infrastructure and it can have a tremendous positive impact on young kids.”
Gonzalez-Jaime admits he has much to learn. But when I ask if he was hired to “rescue” the institution, he responds without hesitation.
“In any institution, you have ups and downs,” he tells me. “I’m not here to rescue anybody. I’m really here to define the next chapter. It’s a 5-year-old institution and it’s had a good start. But then you need to think about what’s next and that will be my mission. To look for the next chapter and work with our partners and communities to make that happen.”
Gonzalez-Jaime seems an inspired choice to raise the museum’s profile and performance.
Born and raised in Mexico with five sisters, he recently moved to West Sacramento from Fort Worth, where he ran an arts and social justice nonprofit in a building that once housed the Ku Klux Klan. He turned the site into a thriving gathering place.
Gonzalez-Jaime plans to spend his first 100 days on a “listening tour” around Northern California with museum staff, educators, partners, supporters and community members. But he doesn’t need a tour to know some permanent exhibits might be growing stale.
“We’re living in the capital of the fourth largest economy in the world,” he says. “This is a great institution, but our science museum needs to reflect that this is California, one of the top states in developing science and technology. Let’s make that museum reflect who we are.”
MOSAC can play a unique role, illustrated by Hansen’s story about his visit to a science museum as a child in Minnesota.
“I was 4 or 5, and my great grandmother took me and it made me see for the first time that there was more I could do and more I could become,” Hansen says. “MOSAC is a key part of our efforts to develop the workforce of the future. We want kids from all over the region to come to MOSAC and be inspired and excited about science.”
Gonzalez-Jaime is outgoing, charismatic, accomplished and motivated. Hansen and the MOSAC board believe those skills will lead to more visits from schools and families, elevate the museum’s profile and promote the wonders of science.
Gary Delsohn can be reached at gdelsohn@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
