After nearly 20 years at the helm of the Witte Museum, Marise McDermott has announced that she will step down as president and CEO as of Dec. 31. She will then take on a president emeritus role to advise the board of trustees on the leadership transition and to work on projects for the museum’s 100th anniversary in 2026.
McDermott’s tenure is notable for the dramatic expansion of the museum complex, with the addition of the Robert J. and Helen C. Kleberg South Texas Heritage Center in 2012; the Mays Family Center, which opened its doors to community events in 2016; the recently completed John R. and Greli N. Less Charitable Trust Science & Nature Courtyard and the new Dawson Family Hall currently under construction.
The focus on expansion was necessary as San Antonio’s population grew, McDermott said, to “make sure that the Witte transforms in a way that reflects the change in the city, and also to serve our children with this inquiry-based curriculum and immersive environment that was already so popular and so needed by our teachers.”
The main Witte building was renovated and expanded in 2017 to become the Susan Naylor Center, hosting many science, nature and culture exhibitions under McDermott’s leadership including annual Fiesta coronation gown shows, a major survey of Texas painting and sculpture titled The Art of Texas: 250 Years in 2019, the collection of paintings of wounded military veterans by former President George W. Bush titled Portraits of Courage, and the 2021 Black Cowboys: An American Story exhibition.
The Black Cowboys exhibition is among her proudest achievements, McDermott said, because it essentialized the mission of the Witte to bring previously untold stories to light and to reflect the entire community the museum serves.
“That’s why we call it a safe haven, because the Witte is about all versions of the story,” she said. “We try so hard to be respectful of every version of the story.”
Praise for the team
Asked to reflect on her accomplishments, McDermott praised her team.
“The professional team is really stellar, and I feel really proud of helping to build this team over time,” McDermott said. “They’re the best in the nation, and I’m learning from them now more than they learn from me. That’s been inspiring to me personally.”
She said the Witte has been popular since opening in 1926, and its popularity as a community resource has only grown since. When she took over in 2004, she said the annual number of visitors was around 125,000.
Thanks in part to the addition of a new public parking structure in 2009, visitor numbers grew to 350,000 over time, McDermott said, reaching a peak of 500,000 before the coronavirus pandemic hit and visitor numbers fell.
The Witte is well-poised to fully recover from that setback, she said, to regain its status as an educational resource and a “safe haven for civic dialogue.”
Focused on humanities
The 70-year-old McDermott first arrived in Texas as a journalist at the age of 22, working for the San Angelo Standard-Times, then the Austin American-Statesman and Texas Humanist before moving to San Antonio to work as culture editor for the San Antonio Light newspaper.
It was during her time at the Light that Witte director Mark Lane asked her to come work for the museum to start a new humanities center, which she led for a decade.
McDermott’s lifelong interest in the humanities and public scholarship was fostered by her mother Virginia, an educator, and father John, a philosopher of aesthetics. The family grew up in New York attending that city’s many museums, including the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Guggenheim Museum, she said.
“But once I moved to Texas, I mean, it was all over, because I was so entranced” with the state, she said.
A community fixture
Once she took the leadership position at the Witte, McDermott became influential in San Antonio’s future, positioning the museum as a catalyst for development along Broadway and the Mission and Museum Reaches of the River Walk. She served as chair of the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau, was founding chair of the Luminaria contemporary arts festival, and most recently served as tri-chair of the Alamo Advisory Committee.
She brought the Witte to national attention by serving as chair of the Accreditation Commission of the American Alliance of Museums, and has received numerous awards and honors including San Antonio Greater Chamber of Commerce 2013 Executive Woman of the Year, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas 2015 Texas Patriot Award, 2017 San Antonio Business Journal Business Person of the Year, was honored in 2019 by the San Antonio Women’s Chamber of Commerce Foundation, and in 2023 received the Texas Association of Museums Jack Nokes Lifetime Achievement Award.
As president emeritus, McDermott plans to focus on a book to be published in concert with the Witte Museum’s 100th anniversary.
And, she said, the museum will be in good hands going forward. “It’s good to have new leadership every 20 years. That’s a healthy thing.”
