Staff photo by Connor Cummiskey New Executive Director Kathleen Backer stands in the trench of the World War I exhibit she admires so much at the Brown County Historical Society Museum.

NEW ULM — An old face is the new executive director at the Brown County Historical Society (BCHS).

Kathleen Backer officially started this month as the new executive director. This is her second time at this museum since she helped get it moved into the old post office in the 1980s.

“I am so excited, it is like coming back home again,” Backer said. “That feeling you get if you are going to go to grandma’s and it is that warm, fuzzy feeling. That is exactly how I feel about being back in this chair in this very office.”

Backer said she was proud of the quality of exhibits at the museum. She particularly likes what has been done with the third floor and the World War I exhibit on the second floor.

In fact, she intends to use the resources and research gathered from the WWI exhibit to give complementary, educational talks around the county.

“I always call it ‘return on your investment,'” Backer said. “We have already invested in the research of this wonderful exhibit so how can we share this with more people?”

Backer hopes to create an equivalent-quality exhibit in the first floor. It would provide guests an overview of Brown County history as soon as they walked into the museum.

“It is not something that can be accomplished in a years’ time, but to lay the groundwork so that we can build on that expectation that at some point in time there will be an exhibition of this quality (of the WWI exhibit) on the main floor telling about Brown County history,” Backer said.

She also wants to expand collaboration between Brown County museums. Backer wants to see the museum explaining that there are more stories being told at museums in Sleepy Eye, Comfrey and more.

“That is the hope is that we starting getting some energy to tell the whole, big story which is so important to do,” Backer said.

In turn each of those museums would encourage guests to come to New Ulm’s museum and all history museums across the county.

Backer started her historical career here as the fundraiser coordinator when the BCHS was in the ground floor of what is now the Music Hall of Fame in 1981.

“They were going to raise money to afford to come over here (the old post office) and I was hired to do fundraising for them,” Backer said. “Well I did not know anything about fundraising but Mr. Klammer (then executive director) thought that because I had the gift of gab and I liked history I would probably be well suited to fundraise for them.”

She eventually became the executive director herself before leaving for the Midway Village & Museum Center in 1989.

The Rockford, Ill. center was significantly larger. It covered 137 acres and the museum itself was 53,000 square feet.

Backer left the center after nine years because she married Cal Backer, who refused to leave New Ulm.

She then spent a couple of years as the executive director at FarmAmerica, a farming museum in Waseca.

Backer soon retired, but did not stop working in the history field. She has now run two seasons at the Kiesling House. She hopes to develop a partnership to keep that historical feature running.

ccummiskey@nujournal.com