Conservation Services Manager
Permanent Position-  Hybrid with Collections/Conservation Position

link to position here

About the Position:

The Balboa Art Conservation Center (BACC) in San Diego, CA is growing and we are looking for a Conservation Services Manager to support our team. This position will be an important addition to the BACC team, as it expands its service to fulfill a reinvisioned mission to serve a more diverse audience and make conservation more accessible and relevant to all communities. 

The Conservation Services Manager will support BACC’s fee-for-service conservation work by helping us visualize, strategize, and operationalize for positive change.  The ideal candidate will have a passion for service management and collections care. This position will support BACC conservation teams, workforce, spaces, and service by helping develop protocol and process improvements for staff and spaces as well as manage efforts to maximize efficiency of production and service. 

Consistent with BACC’s efforts to create opportunities for leadership and management experience for practicing conservators and collections care professionals, the Conservation Services Manager position is a hybrid role, to be performed at 50% with the remaining 50% to be served as an associate or senior level art conservation or collections care position. 

If you have dreamed of being a changemaker in the conservation community, but do not want to leave behind the daily work which drew you to the profession, then this position may be for you. 

Candidates with conservation experience are encouraged to apply, with priority given to the areas of Paper, Objects, and Preventive Conservation. (see below for link to Conservation position description)

About our Team:  

The BACC conservation team treats a broad range of objects from a wide variety of museums, historic societies, cultural collections and private clients. The team also provides services such as mounting and framing, technical analysis, condition surveys, workshops, consultation on environmental monitoring, storage, exhibition practices, preventive conservation, and grant writing support. Currently BACC labs service paper, paintings, and frames; in 2023, BACC will expand its service areas to include dedicated staff for textiles, objects, and preventive conservation. Across departments, BACC’s conservators and staff are a collaborative, innovative, and supportive group who enjoy active involvement with operations at BACC and the greater art and cultural heritage community who we have the pleasure to work with daily. We are a small but mighty team of eight full time staff who mentor interns and fellows on a regular basis and work passionately to demystify art conservation in our regional community.  This position reports to and works collaboratively with the Executive Director to nourish a positive and healthy workplace and will be critical in ensuring BACC’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity is practiced both externally with our communities, institutions, and clients as well as internally, with our staff, our field, and our process. 

POSITION:  Conservation Services ManagerQUALIFICATIONSREQUIREDDemonstrated commitment to anti-racism, diversity, equity, inclusion, access, and representation in professional, personal, or community setting
Passion for spreadsheets and database management and ability to navigate , common administrative software (e.g. Microsoft 365, Adobe Creative Cloud, etc.), cloud-based business solutions (e.g. Google Drive, SharePoint, AirTable, etc.) and mobile technology
Understanding of nonprofit and business management models 
Ability to manage multiple teams, lead collaboratively, enforce accountability measures, and implement support systems
Ability to analyze, recommend and implement process improvements for teams and services
Ability to create, manage, and reconcile department budgets
Ability to create, implement, and manage team timelines, task management, and schedules
High-level understanding of collections care as a service to advise conservators, colleagues, and clients and as a profession to help support and strengthen our conservation workforce. 
PREFERREDMaster’s degree from an accredited art conservation program
Ability to perform full spectrum of human resource management (i.e. recruiting to supervision to separation)
Ability to manage valuable tangible property (e.g. supplies, equipment, customers’ property, laboratory space, etc.).
Ability to support full spectrum of grant management and/or contract management (i.e. prospecting to application to reporting)
Ability to support intentional growth and diversification of client base and other revenue generating activities

ESSENTIAL  DUTIES

Conservation

-Support the conservation labs in developing efficiency models, process improvements, and key performance indicators to maximize productivity
-Support the conservation labs in developing best practices and health and safety protocols 

Engagement

-Support the management of institutional members (recruitment, communication, member management) and private clients.
-Participate in the development of outreach and engagement initiatives 
-Remain current in conservation practices, conduct research in the field of conservation management  and present those results in the form of public lectures and publications when appropriate
-Represent BACC in joint projects with collecting institutions, including but not limited to grant support, collections care assessments, environmental assessments, emergency preparedness, emergency response procedures, and large-scale conservation projects

Administrative/Management

-Support the mission and goals of the entire organization. Aim to achieve sustainability, impact and relevance for the whole organization
-Support BACC’s efforts to build a collaborative leadership model 
-Empower, encourage, support, and direct teams
-Support full spectrum of HR functions, from recruiting to separation, staffing, performance reviews and staff professional development
-Supervise and manage workflows, schedules, budgets, quality of outputs for all conservation labs
-Maintain accurate, retrievable and searchable records in databases and files (shared drives, Airtable, etc)
-Communicate directly with customers and deliver high-quality customer service
In collaboration with the Executive Director, oversee all technical study and analysis, collect and maintain statistics, reports, revenue plan, and other metrics to assess and improve functions, develop policies and procedures for process improvements 
-Support Executive Director with full spectrum of grant/contract management, from prospecting to reporting
-Act as an external ambassador and internal role model for the organization

Salary/Benefits:
$65,000 – $75,000  DOE
Salary range represents 50% Conservation Services Manager position and 50% Associate or Senior-level Conservator position. Salary commensurate with experience. Please see here for conservation position description. 

We seek to fill this position by June 1, 2023.

Benefits Include:15 days of vacation to start; increases to 20 days after one year of employment

10 days of paid sick leave
14 paid holidays (including a winter break)
Conservation-related membership registration reimbursement
Health benefits (medical, dental)
TIAA-CREF retirement program. BACC will match up to 5% of employee’s contribution (eligible after one year of employment)

Application Process:A statement of interest (statement should include proposed area of conservation service)
A current CV 
In support of proposed conservation position: A writing sample (such as a technical exam or research paper)
A portfolio containing three (3) treatments or projects (can be submitted in digital or paper format)

The application review process will begin on April 28, 2023 and the position will remain open until filled. 

By email to Lgomezfranco@bacc.org with the subject line: “Conservation Services Manager”
-OR-
By US Mail to: 
Leticia Gomez Franco, Executive Director
Balboa Art Conservation Center 
PO Box 3755 
San Diego, CA 92163

The Balboa Art Conservation Center provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to age, ancestry, color, disability (mental and physical), gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, military or veteran status, national origin, political affiliation, race, religious creed, sex (includes pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, and any other status protected by local, state or federal law. 

Black, Indigenous, and People of Color applicants are highly encouraged to apply. We are eagerly looking for a new team member to join us on our journey to becoming the sustainable and relevant organization we seek to be. This position description describes some of the core competencies and qualities of a potential candidate. If you feel this position may be a great fit for you despite not fitting perfectly into the box we have visualized above, you are highly encouraged to reach out, ask questions, and apply. 

About BACC:

The Balboa Art Conservation Center was founded in the 1970s as part of a national movement to create regional conservation centers that would serve collecting institutions within a certain geography. The goal was to centralize conservation and preservation services, bringing relief to museums, historical centers, libraries, etc., fulfilling their conservation needs without having to replicate the administrative, equipment, staffing and resources needed to run an entire conservation lab at every single institution. There are fewer than a dozen of these regional conservation centers in the country and BACC is the only regional conservation center on the west coast. Our center is located in San Diego, California on the ancestral homelands of the Kumeyaay Nation and our geographic area includes California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Alaska. We are currently an eight-member team, in a 4,000 square foot facility on the second floor of a historic building in beautiful Balboa Park. 

For more than 45 years, BACC has been fulfilling its mission as a conservation lab to provide conservation and preservation services for cultural institutions and private collectors for their works of art, cultural objects, and historic artifacts. In accordance with best practices such as the American Institute of Conservation’s Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice, its highly trained conservators offer a rigorous and scientific approach to the preservation, examination, and treatment of cultural heritage objects. BACC has various scientific and technological equipment to aid in the examination of works including Infrared Reflectography, X-radiography, and  X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (XRF).

As a nonprofit organization, BACC is also committed to benefiting the public good by supporting training and education opportunities and partnering with stewards of community cultural collections. BACC is expanding access to the field of conservation to historically underrepresented communities by expanding the existing knowledge base to include culturally conscious and responsive methods of conservation. In turn, BACC is committed to learning from and dialoguing with artists and caretakers of diverse cultural heritage and ancestral collections.