Curator IV, Curator in Charge of Exhibitions – Museum – SFO (3546)

San Francisco International Airport (SFO), an enterprise department of the City and County of San Francisco (CCSF), has approximately 1,700 CCSF employees and strives to be a diverse, equitable, and inclusive employer.

SFO’s mission is delivering an airport experience where people and our planet come first, and our core values are Safety and Security, Teamwork, Excellence, Care, and Equity. Learn more about careers at SFO. 

For more information about SFO, visit www.flysfo.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Established in 1980 by the Airport Commission, SFO Museum’s mission is to delight, engage, and inspire a global audience with programming on a broad range of subjects; to collect, preserve, interpret, and share the history of commercial aviation; and to enrich the public experience at San Francisco International Airport. The Museum has been accredited by the American Alliance of Museums since 1999 and retains the distinction of being the only accredited museum in an airport. The Museum operates more than twenty-five sites throughout the Airport terminals, including fourteen galleries that exhibit a rotating schedule of art, history, photography, science, and cultural exhibitions. Among the sites is the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, which houses a permanent collection of more than 150,000 objects related to the history of commercial aviation. For additional information about SFO Museum, please visit www.sfomuseum.org.

Specific information regarding this recruitment process are listed below:

Application Opening: Friday, September 20, 2024

Application Deadline: Interested applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible as this announcement may close at any time after 5:00pm on Friday, October 4th.

Compensation Range: $120,276 – $146,172 (https://careers.sf.gov/classifications/?classCode=3546&setId=COMMN)

Fill Type: Permanent Exempt (PEX)

Hours: Full-time

Recruitment ID:  PEX-3546-145174 (RTF0145116-01122923)

Appointment Type: Permanent Exempt, Category 18: This position is excluded by the Charter from the competitive Civil Service examination process and shall serve at the discretion of the Appointing Officer. The duration of the appointment shall not exceed 36 months. 

Job Description

The Curator in Charge of Exhibitions position supervises and coordinates the Curatorial Department, which presents twenty-five exhibits annually and plans its exhibit schedule three years in advance.  All curation, object selection, text production, and educational programming for these exhibitions is produced in-house by SFO Museum.  The oversight and coordination required to maintain this schedule is complex and extensive and requires a dedicated curatorial manager and professional to provide the targeted and knowledgeable direction required to maintain the Museum’s curatorial program.  The Curator IV is also responsible for independently developing, curating, and coordinating several exhibits each calendar year.

Duties will include but will not be limited to:

Coordinates and supervises the work, exhibition schedules, and exhibition direction of the curatorial team; Manages selection of exhibits for a calendar of 20-30 shows annually; Develops, implements, and maintains regular coordination meetings to ensure departmental staff remain abreast of curatorial direction and developments reflected in the Museum’s exhibition calendar.

Verify invoices for correct sales tax, discounts, and duplicate billing to ensure expenditures are properly authorized.

Independently curates exhibitions for the SFO Museum program including creating story lines, and identifying, locating, and selecting objects for exhibitions; conducts research in connection with identifying and publicizing information on objects in the exhibitions; works with the Museum Designer to convey vision for individual story lines of exhibitions; and acts as liaison with donors, lenders, and lending institutions in order to obtain objects for exhibition.

Researches and writes text labels, brochure text, and web text.

Manages and supports all assigned staff, interns, and volunteers.

Proofreads all exhibition text.

Participates in regular revie of exhibition material proposed by Video Arts Curator.

Plans and conducts tours, educational programs, and art appreciation opportunities for childrens groups in the museum or the public schools; lectures on and discusses art objects from the museums collection and interprets the museums collections and exhibits in all fields of art for school classes. Conducts gallery tours for adult study groups, employee resource groups, colleagues from other museums, and other interested parties.

Assumes the lead in creating the education component for non-aviation exhibitions.

Gives lectures and gallery talks relating to exhibitions; prepares and publishes articles and catalogs concerning exhibitions; Supervises, counsels and instructs graduate students engaged in research and thesis preparation in the fields of museum service and art education.

Ensures that existing museum and airport methods and procedures are in place and maintains records.

Education:  Possession of a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university with major course work in fine arts, art history , decorative arts, design, history, library science, museum studies, natural history, science, technology, or other closely related disciplines.

Experience:  Seven (7) years of museum experience including two years of responsible supervisory experience.

Applicants must meet the minimum qualification requirement by the final filing date unless otherwise noted.

One year full-time employment is equivalent to 2,000 hours (2,000 hours of qualifying work experience is based on a 40 hour work week). Any overtime hours that you work above 40 hours per week are not included in the calculation to determine full-time employment.

Verification:  Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point during the recruitment and selection process. If education verification is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found at https://sfdhr.org/how-verify-education-requirements .

Note: Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.

All work experience, education, training, and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline.

Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications.

Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application.

Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility, disqualification or may lead to lower scores.

Selection Procedures:  The selection process will include evaluation of applications in relation to minimum requirements.  Applicants meeting the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement to interview.  Depending on the number of applicants, the Department may establish and implement additional screening mechanisms to comparatively evaluate the qualifications of candidates.  If this becomes necessary, only those applicants whose qualifications most closely meet the needs of the Department will be invited for an interview.

NOTE:  Applicants who meet the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement through all of the steps in the selection procedure.

Customs Clearance:  This position requires that the incumbent be qualified for unescorted access to the San Francisco International Airport U.S. Customs Security Area. An application for a U.S. Custom Access Seal may be submitted to Customs ONLY after employment has commenced. Employment in this position requires that the incumbent submit an application for, successfully acquire and maintain a Customs Access Seal. Per Civil Service Commission Rule 110.9.1, every applicant must possess and maintain the qualifications required by law and by the examination announcement for this examination. Failure to acquire or maintain customs access, a requirement for this position, may be basis for termination from employment with the Airport Commission. Customs Access Seal requirements and procedures are located in the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 19, Part 122, Sections 181 or 189.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Security Clearance:  Candidates for employment with the San Francisco Airport Commission are required to undergo a criminal history record check, including FBI fingerprints, and Security Threat Assessment in order to determine eligibility for security clearance and may be required to undergo drug/alcohol screening. Per Civil Service Commission Rule Section 110.9.1, every applicant for an examination must possess and maintain the qualifications required by law and by the examination announcement for the examination. Failure to obtain and maintain security clearance may be basis for termination from employment with the Airport Commission.

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:

Information About the Hiring Process (https://sfdhr.org/information-about-hiring-process)

Conviction History

Employee Benefits Overview   (https://sfdhr.org/benefits-overview)

Equal Employment Opportunity 

Disaster Service Worker (https://sfdhr.org/disaster-service-workers)

ADA Accommodation

Right to Work (https://sfdhr.org/information-about-hiring-process#identification)

Copies of Application Documents

Diversity Statement (https://careers.sf.gov/knowledge/#diversitystatement)

HOW TO APPLY

Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process. Visit https://careers.smartrecruiters.com/CityAndCountyOfSanFrancisco1/ and begin the application process.

• Select the “I’m Interested” button and follow instructions on the screen

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com).

Applicants will receive a confirmation email that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received.

Recruitment Analyst Information:  If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact Ben Cen at lebin.cen@flysfo.com (Corinne.Young@flysfo.com) or (650) 821-2076.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.