After 13 years as executive director of the National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus, Bruce Smith announced Wednesday that he’ll retire at the end of the year.
“I’ve been thinking about it for six months or so,” said Smith, 65. “Now seems to be a good time.”
In May, as part of the proposed city budget for 2012, Mayor Teresa Tomlinson suggested reducing the naval museum’s subsidy to $78,000 from $300,000.
Port Columbus held a community rally, and Smith said the museum might be forced to close.
In the approved 2012 budget, the museum is set to receive $250,000.
Smith said his retirement “comes at a convenient time in regard to that.”
“If someone had asked me seven or eight years ago if I had a plan for retirement, I would say that it would be when you find me basically slumped over at my desk,” he said. “Since then, I got married. I have someone I want to do fun things with while I still have the ability.”
He married Carole, a retired special education teacher, in 2005. Between the two of them, they have five children and five grandchildren.
The couple plans to move to south Florida, where they own a house near Orlando.
Smith came to Columbus during the summer of 1998 from Germantown, Texas, where he was executive director of the National Museum of the Pacific War. Germantown was the hometown of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who commanded the Pacific fleet during World War II.
Smith said his mission in Columbus was to build a new $8.3 million museum. “It was so much fun,” he said, adding that the tasks required long hours of planning.
“But I had an incredibly supportive staff and the Columbus Challenge made it all possible,” he said.
The Columbus Challenge was a fundraising effort that eventually built RiverCenter for the Performing Arts and gave money to other arts organizations including the Springer Opera House and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.
The new museum opened 10 years ago.
The museum’s board has created a search committee to find a replacement for Smith.
“A decision will probably be made by mid-November. I would like to have some time with whomever the replacement is. I’ll tell him or her how to find everything I’ve hidden. And I’ll be just a phone call away.”
Smith does not play golf, but he said he plans to take up the sport when he moves to his new retirement community.
“It’s a really cool place,” he said. “We took two of our grandsons there and we went to four Disney parks in two days. It darned near killed me.”
