It’s not often that a supporter comes along and is the catalyst of transformative change.
Gurdon Wattles used to sit with me in the galleries of the New Bedford Whaling Museum and review draft sketches of a reimagined campus as we talked about our shared goals for visitors and our desire to increase learning about the region’s important history.
His ideas exemplified his care and concern for the visitor’s experience. “How do we say hello?” he once said to me when we were dreaming through changes to our entrance.
Gurdon literally and figuratively transformed the Museum through massive endeavors like the four-story Wattles Jacobs Education Center and the Wattles Family Gallery (our fine art gallery). He routinely and quietly funded our college internship program, improvements to technology, gallery acoustics, and made our ambitious strategic planning possible.