You need to hear this: Her biggest tip is how to make yourself irreplaceable. Alumna and current PhD student in history Kerri Dean-Bridges (MA, History, ’15) is the DIY project manager at the Smithsonian Institution—her dream job. They create remote exhibitions easily installed in any location. Listen and learn. Episode Transcript: Kerri: I was about to move to DC with my husband who had gotten a job in the city, knowing that we wanted to work there and knowing that my dream was Smithsonian, I just needed to get closer to it. In my speech, though, when I was leaving, I said, "I am going to work at the Smithsonian." I put it out there in the universe. I never have done that before ever in my life and one of my best friends told me "Just start putting it in the universe." It was the first time I said it out loud, and three weeks later they called me for the interview. So, I just feel like there was some cosmic energy to work there. Rachel Jimenez: I'm Rachel Jimenez. Megan Elledge: And I'm Megan Elledge. Rachel Jimenez: Welcome to How'd You Get That Job, a podcast from Claremont Graduate University about successful careers and the stories behind them. Rachel Jimenez: Kerri, I'm so excited to have you on our show today. Thank you so much for being here and being willing to share your story with us. Kerri: Thanks, Rachel. I'm excited to be here with you guys and talk to you about my time at CGU and how it led me to where I'm at. Rachel Jimenez: Awesome. So, you are currently the exhibitions assistant/project manager for DIY at the Smithsonian Institution, which is the National Museum of Natural History. Can you talk about what that super-long title means and what you do in your role there? Kerri: Yeah. So, it's a super long title. That's kind of on my part that it's super long. I started there in March 2018, so a little over two years, and because the Smithsonian is a quasi-government museum complex, research institution, that there are different ways of hiring, so [inaudible 00:01:36] backstory on how I got the position: I'm hired on as a contractor and, when I got the SOW, which is a statement of work, I applied for an exhibits assistant position, and then I had to bid for it. Once I got the interview, we were ready to move to DC anyway, and I got to do that interview right when I moved there, so very lucky that worked out, timing-wise. Kerri: They interviewed me for the exhibits assistant position and it's mostly just admin tasks. I help install exhibits, if there's anything that needs to be done, anything under other project managers, anything under other exhibit developers in the exhibits department and natural history. It's a department of 32 people which is quite large. We are one of the bigger museums of the Smithsonian brand. Kerri: I work directly under the assistant director of exhibits, Mike Lawrence, and when he hired me, he actually just had been promoted to that position, and so I was his first assistant. He and I get along very well, as we were both kind of Type A personalities and he realized he really didn't need much of an assistant, so they needed to give me some other task to do to keep me busy to continue to work full time, and it just happened to be, when I started there, they were starting this brand new program that's never been done at the Smithsonian and, from my knowledge, not broadly at other institutions either. Kerri: We call it the Do It Yourself exhibits, and from this, I kind of was able to transform my position from mainly just being an exhibits assistant and doing admin work to being a project manager or a program manager. We're still working on the title, so it might even be longer, who knows? It's not actually official yet. Well, it's official, but it's such a new program, we don't know if it's a program yet. We just got it on the website. Very huge accomplishment from myself and my team I was working with to do that about three weeks ago, but we're calling it a program and I'm the project manager for the Do It Yourself exhibits that have been developed. Kerri: How that came about was, in my interview, I actually mentioned how much I really like museums without walls concept, and that's actually something that came from a CGU class that I really got into this idea of a team project where we were looking at doing a museum exhibit in [inaudible 00:03:55]. It was during the Bath Spa class, and my classmates and I ... this was our group project at the end of the semester, and it really inspired me five years ago, six years ago, to start really thinking about museums without walls and how we can reach communities and not in a normal museum setting. Kerri: So, since I mentioned that in the interview and this program was just getting started, they thought I was the perfect person to kind of spearhead it when the first Do It Yourself exhibit came up. At first, we called it a pop-up exhibit, but then I did some title testing with the visitors and we landed on Do It Yourself. Now, we just call it the DIY program. It started with Outbreak, which is our exhibit that's in-house. It's called Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World. We took this exhibit that's 4,200 square feet, it's a very timely exhibit right now, and we pared it down into 18 content panels that we distribute for free around the world, and people can print on demand and create these exhibits to be popped up in their own museums, in their own libraries, in airports, wherever. Kerri: That's how my position has now transformed to being more of managing these Do It Yourself exhibits. I'm super excited about it because it's so exciting to see, especially Outbreak. We translated it into five languages. It's been to over 140 locations in just over two years, and I've been personally the person who contacts these people where it's gone and I've helped them get these exhibits up. I get to do specific outreach on museum content I never thought was imaginable before. So, yes, it's a very long title and it's a very long story on how I got the title, and I'm super excited on how it just kind of keeps forming into this new position and it never really existed before, so I'm excited about that. Rachel Jimenez: I love it, and I think that's so interesting. So, we know each other. You worked in the office of advancement when you were a student, so I know that the Smithsonian is your dream job. Can you give us a breakdown? I would love to hear the story of why is that your dream company to work for, and then how do you go from being an undergraduate student and then to where you are now? Even in high school. I don't know when you came up with the dream of wanting to work there, but how did that dream get established and then how do you actually make something like that come true? Kerri: So yes, we do know each other, and I've loved working with you and everyone in marketing, communications and advancement. I miss everyone, but I do love being in DC, and it is where I wanted to be. I didn't even realize that's where I ... I always knew the Smithsonian was the dream place to me and, as a kid, we grew up going to ... my parents got me really into history and I was not a history undergrad major, I was a poli sci major and I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. Then, I decided I liked myself too much, and I decided not to do that, or not to go to law school. Kerri: So, I took some time off. I took five years off. I worked at a bank, and then hated that. Then, I went and I taught at a community college. I taught at Chaffey in the writing center, and I did that for three years. That's when I decided to go back to grad school and let's get into Claremont after some people have started to tell me ... some people I'd worked with at Chaffey had also gone to CGU and they recommended looking into their program. Then, I spent a summer in China the year before I decided to apply to CGU to kind of see what I really wanted to do. Kerri: Then, that's when I got this idea, like "You know, museums have always been what I wanted to do. I've always been interested in history. I'm going to go to school for history and then do museums because I don't really want to be a professor because that's just not ... " I mean, I got the teaching experience, I taught in China, I taught at Chaffey, I led workshops at Chaffey, and it wasn't really where my passion was. I like things and what things can tell people when they go to see them in a museum setting, but I'm also the person who reads every label. So, I do love museums. Even as a kid, watching Indiana Jones and him being part of the National Museum was always inspiring. Kerri: That's how I knew the Smithsonian was the crème de la crème, right? It is the crème brûlée of museums. People think of museums, that's usually the one they think of, the institution they think of. I didn't realize it would ever happen. I was very skeptical that it would ever happen, but I had a job at a local museum in Upland, California, the Cooper Regional History Museum, for a little over a year before I left. Started as a ... to finishing up an RA position I had with Dr. Janet Brodie, and she introduced me to them. Kerri: Once I was there, I literally worked at the tiniest museum you could think of. It is so tiny, it's only five minutes from CGU but it is so tiny, and I spent a lot of time reworking their collections management policy, working on curating an exhibit, and I knew if I could do small things [inaudible 00:08:46] I doubt I could be a little fish in a big pond, but I still wanted the Smithsonian. Never would have thought it'd be the second big job I had. Kerri: My last day of working at that museum, we had an opening reception for the exhibit I curated, and the board of directors asked me to do a speech. I was about to move to DC with my husband, who had gotten a job in the city, knowing that we wanted to work there and knowing that my dream was Smithsonian, I just needed to get closer to it. In my speech, though, when I was leaving, I said, "I am going to work at the Smithsonian." I put it out there in the universe. I never have done that before ever in my life and one of my best friends told me "Just start putting it in the universe." It was the first time I said it
