The Santa Barbara Historical Museum recently appointed new trustees and elected a new slate of officers.
In keeping with their motto, “Building a future worth remembering,” the new trustees are longtime supporters, historically minded and dedicated to the community.
John Woodward previously served on the board of the museum as its treasurer, and has also served on the boards of the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library, the Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society, and as Chairman of both City and County Historical Landmarks Commissions.
In 1976 he drafted a complete revision of the El Pueblo Viejo Historic Landmarks Ordinance that greatly strengthened legal protections for the city’s historic landmarks.
Woodward is an attorney and has practiced law in Santa Barbara for the past 42 years.
Eleanor Van Cott is a former trustee and president of the Historical Museum.
Van Cott is a native of New York. From 1971 to 2006, she worked with the Alice Tweed Tuohy Foundation and was a legal administrator with the law firms of Seed, MacKall & Cole and Schramm, Raddue & Seed.
Van Cott has been a board member and founder of the Santa Barbara Associates, the RITA Republican Women’s Club and the GALS Republican Women’s Club.
Warren Miller, also a former trustee, has joined the museum’s board, where he will serve as treasurer and interim executive director.
A native of Illinois, Miller’s professional background includes environmental management, natural resources administration and the forest products industry. A graduate of Harvard University, Miller also studied at the University of Chicago Law School and the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources.
Miller previously served as trustee, and with his wife, Marlene, was honored in 2007 for their efforts in perpetuating the legacy of famed Western artist John Edward Borein. Miller was a founding director of the Wildling Art Museum, and past president of the Hope Ranch Park Homes Association. He currently serves as the president of The Land Trust for Santa Barbara County.
William Burtness has been elected president of the Historical Museum.
Burtness, who has served as a trustee for the past three years, was born and raised in Santa Barbara. He received a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University after which he served for three years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force.
He returned to Stanford for his MBA and then embarked on a 31-year career as a banker with the Security Pacific National Bank in Los Angeles.
He is a former president of the Beverly Hills Bankers Association. Since returning to Santa Barbara he has served on the boards of Direct Relief International, Sansum Diabetes Research Institute, and the Santa Barbara Club. He is currently a board member of the Stanford Club of Santa Barbara and The Westerners.
About the Museum
The Santa Barbara Historical Museum has a long legacy in our community, and an enduring commitment to its mission. It is dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting and exhibiting the material culture of the Santa Barbara region in all its diversity; to educating through lectures, tours and in the classroom; and to encouraging research, scholarship and publication of the history of the community with the belief that history can guide and inspire our actions, a tool with which we can build a better tomorrow.
The museum’s signature exhibition, “The Story of Santa Barbara,” traces the evolution of the region from the days of the Chumash into the 21st century. The museum holds in public trust more than 90,000 irreplaceable historic artifacts, including paintings, drawings, furniture, saddles, decorative arts and one of the largest costume collections west of the Mississippi. The museum’s research facility, The Gledhill Library, counts more than 5,000 books, 70,000 photographs as well as maps, newspaper volumes, government documents, private papers and oral histories among its collections. On view until Oct. 6 in the Sala Gallery is “De la Tierra: Art of the Adobe.”
Visit the museum from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Entrance is complimentary. The museum is located in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara at 136 E. De la Guerra St.
For more information, call 805.966.1601 or click here.
— Dacia Harwood represents the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.