Learning and experimentation happen constantly at La Nube, and that now extends to the STEAM center’s leadership team.
La Nube’s board recently announced changes at the top, going from one chief executive officer to three at the helm: Mick Martinez, chief strategy officer; Karla Salazar, chief advancement officer; and Deana White, chief operations officer.
The three come from diverse backgrounds in education and beyond. Salazar was the second person to be hired at La Nube in the museum’s early days. White was a high school teacher and later a principal and has been with La Nube for about 2.5 years.
Martinez started his career in higher education and spent 16 years working at the University of Texas at El Paso.
As the museum turns 2, the three leaders said they’re focused on continuing La Nube’s mission and vision while balancing growth and challenges.
Photo provided by Jordan Foster Construction
Q: What was the lead-up to the decision to have three executives at the top?
Martinez: We weren’t part of those original discussions. This was a board decision, and so a lot of those decision-making things happened at the board level. But what we can say is that us being here from the very beginning gives us a unique insight into the museum and into La Nube before it opened up, and the philosophical vision behind it.
White: We know that there are two other museums in the U.S. that are beginning to go into that route. The Denver Children’s Museum and the Madison Children’s Museum have a co-chief structure. Some of the things that we’ve experienced personally are kind of a deeper expertise in certain sectors at that top level.
It also comes with some shared accountability and ownership, and it models collaboration over hierarchy. Something that we were really striving toward as a new organization is breaking the barriers between departments and trying to achieve synergy as much as we can.
Q: How do you work with the board with regard to accountability and the direction that the board is looking for? How does that work with you three all in play?
Martinez: Yeah, so we definitely have a very hands-on board that is very passionate, that is very invested in La Nube’s mission and vision. And our board truly appreciates and understands that this is a unique undertaking. This was an unknown when we first started.
Now more than ever, not only do they have a fiduciary responsibility from board members, but they have to make sure that we are heading in the right direction. And so they are very vocal, and they will share with us to make sure that we stay on track with our mission and vision.
We all have the opportunity to share the story with our board. We all have our unique areas now that we are focused on. And they will ask deep, insightful questions to make sure that we are encouraging collaboration and that we are supporting the community.
Q: What’s something that you’ve really gotten to dig into during this time in your new positions?
Martinez: I like to talk about access and accessibility and what we call La Nube For All, which is really an umbrella term for our access initiatives.
After the first eight months of planning and operating, we started to understand our demographics a lot more. We were very critical in making sure that we would try to represent our guests as much as possible with the rest of the El Paso demographics. We quickly realized that our demographics required access initiatives.
Our WIC and SNAP ticket access program started when we first opened at maybe about 10% to 12%. Last month, we had 42% of our guests’ attendance come from our WIC and SNAP access, which is our deeply discounted $3 and $5 admission for adults. Our normal general admission is $20 and $17. Providing that amount of access is amazing. We are one of the highest, if not the highest, in the nation, in terms of access to our WIC and SNAP share.
White: The data for El Paso is that one in every three children lives in poverty. It was very important to us to stay close to our mission and our vision of providing transformative student experiences to all abilities and to all under traditionally underrepresented populations.
We’re really proud of those access numbers, but they bring challenges.
Salazar: And some of the challenges we just learned of in San Diego two weeks ago. Some museums are shutting down their access programs, and they’re saying they couldn’t keep operating if they were at the same rate.
We’re determined to be a beacon of inclusion. We’re going to put all our efforts into really getting the community to chime in and also our local leaders or local partners. It takes the entire community for us to be able to be open and accessible for all.
Q: The collaborative process is not always smooth sailing. When things get rough, how do you handle it and make sure everybody feels heard and understood?
Salazar: Since our inception, we wanted to hire people who embrace empathy. La Nube is going to be a place where kids are not going to follow rules. They’re going to learn at their pace. They’re going to make mistakes because that’s the only way you can grow up in life. My first director always told me we should embrace that and give the same opportunity we give our kids to our own team members.
We really try to lead with heart, understanding that we are fathers, mothers, sisters, that we have a family out there, that we have problems out there, but we come here and we give our best for this community.
White: I also think that it’s good that the three of us are so different. We truly come from diverse backgrounds and often have different ideas on how to approach different challenges. That creative struggle is good. That it can give birth to amazing ideas and creative ways of solving challenges.
It’s important for people learning and trying out these new types of models to know that it’s not always going to be smooth sailing, that it’s OK to disagree. But the important thing that unites us is we really do have a passion for meeting that same mission and vision.
Q: What are some of the needs or goals of La Nube in the next 5 years?
Martinez: From the business development and revenue and attendance side, I want to grow our attendance. That means I want to reach more families in ZIP codes that we’re not hitting. It takes resources and commitment, a street team and funding to be able to go out there and really get them encouraged.
Learning is one of those things that sometimes families may not fully invest in. They’re quick to invest in entertainment and this short-term excitement that happens. But this mold between learning, entertainment and family connection, that takes a little bit more effort and time. Once they get here, they love it and you see the family connection.
From a revenue standpoint, we always want to balance our budget. We want to make sure that we’re using our resources sustainably. We want to make sure we build out a business model that not only works internally operationally, but that we protect our team and that our team is compensated well.
We want to be good stewards of storytelling. We may do some amazing things here, but if it doesn’t get out into the community, they don’t know it, and if they don’t know it, they can’t support it and advocate on behalf of us. So, on my end, it’s building out that storytelling and sharing those stories that we’ve already had an amazing impact over time.
Q: Is there anything that you can share about the budget that you’re working with? What’s the budget amount for this year?
Martinez: What I can say is that it is sometimes challenging working with a budget when you have a share of guests who pay different ticket prices. We talked about balancing access and mission, and that is definitely a challenge and also an opportunity that we’re working with right now.
Without underwriting support, it’s really hard. I will see the comments on social media – we read through them all the time and we talk to our community members – and many times people have concerns, a lot of them rightfully so. Things are just out of reach for their family. During hard economic times, how do you meet them in the middle? Those are all things that we’re tackling.
Internally, we have a food pantry for our discovery guides and our guests and anybody who may need it who has food insecurity. We do that internally because we believe in that.
We work with our board, and we are working with our donors and support systems to make sure that we can underwrite some of those things so that we can continue serving.
Q: Do you have a moment that really sticks with you about something you’ve seen here at La Nube, or experienced, that continues to live in your heart?
Karla: For me, every morning, sometimes we are in meetings in one of the rooms downstairs, and it faces the group entry, where kids come in every morning. We receive 500 to 600 kiddos every day. It’s when they walk in and they have that big smile. Maybe for that kid, you never know. Maybe this is going to be their Disneyland. Maybe it’ll be the best experience and the best memory of their lives. Hopefully, it will spark that moment for them to say they want to become an engineer or an astronaut or whatever. For me, that’s the beauty.
We’re making something good. If they can take it home and share with more people so they can come and enjoy, and if we can convert that into repeat visitors, imagine the impact on the future of those kiddos.
White: When I’m at my happiest is when we’re doing specialty programming for different groups. As an example, we worked on bringing in middle school girls. They were able to connect with different women in the STEAM industry (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) and get to ask questions to a career panel. They then go through different rotations of STEAM music sessions – from being able to collaborate on songwriting with a singer-songwriter to working with music therapists, or even local women DJs. It’s pretty cool.
You never know when you’re sparking someone’s future career, when you’re getting a middle schooler, a first grader, a high school kiddo, excited about what they might want to do for the rest of their lives. It’s providing that spark of opportunity that they might not get in other settings. Those are my happy moments, and any other stressful part of the job disappears at least for that time.
Martinez: Sometimes, when you stand back, you see the spark in the kids’ eyes. And the mom or the daughter or the father, the caregiver is looking, and all of a sudden, it’s just like this unspoken connection of, you did it.
There was a time when we were looking at one of the cameras, and we were seeing the first steps of babies in Desert Bloomers. It brings me back to seeing my children take their first steps.
My son is 12 years old and when he’s in front of everybody else, he’s too cool for everybody. Sometimes I’ll pick him up at 3 o’clock, and I’ll bring him here to work. And I tell him, “Dude, you have an amazing time. You can come and do whatever you want at the museum and enjoy it.” He’s like, “No, I’m too old for that.” And then sometimes I’ll be working and he’ll go off and I’ll peek around and he’s just running around. That tells me we’re doing something, we’re doing something right.