The sent Kirk Johnson to all seven continents, helped him discover more than 1,400 fossil sites and encouraged him to pursue his passion: hoisting a pick over his shoulder; tramping through desert washes, jungle embankments and steppe swales; and digging for dinosaurs.
And now, the museum can claim at least partial involvement in another Johnson journey — to the helm of the , the largest museum of its kind in the world.
“It’s traumatic to leave,” said Johnson, 51, who began working at the Denver museum 21 years ago, after earning his . “I came here as a kid. I love this place. I never intended to leave it. I think of this as 21 years of museum school.”
Johnson, whose academic specialty centers on the evolution and extinction of species and ecosystems between 50 million and 100 million years ago, was the museum’s chief curator. The museum has an annual budget of $40 million (Johnson’s budget was about $3.5 million), 1.4 million visitors a year and 17 scientists.
The Smithsonian’s natural-history museum — a grand, green-domed structure in the center of the nation’s capital — has a federal budget of $68 million, 7.4 million visitors a year and 100 scientists, as well as hundreds of other employees.
, both of whom sit on the Smithsonian Institution’s board of regents.
The museum houses 126 million objects, which are like 126 million jolts of glee for Johnson, a swashbuckling, gregarious guy who spins his life around science, fossils and the adventure required to gain access to skulls and leaves from .
During his time in Colorado, Johnson traveled the world looking for fossils, but he mostly hunkered down in the West, where he , and led a massive excavation of
“The great story of this planet is the story of the life on this planet. And it’s such an unknown story,” said Johnson. “That’s one thing that will be so cool about the museum. I’ll have this huge staff of scientists making discoveries daily.”
He begins his new job in October. The Denver museum will search for a replacement, which will include internal candidates and people from around the world.
Johnson’s departure is a mixed bag for museum staffers. On the one hand, Johnson’s achievement thrills them. On the other hand, they hate to see him go.
“I tell people, ‘You get to say, “I worked here during the Kirk years,” ‘ ” said museum president and chief executive George Sparks. “He’s just bigger than life in many ways. Everybody hates to lose their best people, but this is your goal in life as a manager and leader: to prepare people to go on to bigger and better things.
“A little piece of all of us goes with him, and it makes you proud. There is no other word I can use.”
Douglas Brown: 303-954-1395, djbrown@denverpost.com or twitter.com/douglasjbrown
