{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/057cr5qc0h/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Don Otto"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/713/original/aviary_default_logo.png?1751992923","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOtto, Don. Interview by Christina Hardman. \u003cem\u003ePaluxysaurus jonesi\u003c/em\u003e. August 11, 2025. Paleontological Oral History Program/Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Fort Worth, Texas.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Duration"]},"value":{"en":["00:37:53"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Fort Worth Museum of Science and History"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Don Otto (Interviewee)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2025-08-11 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eFormer President of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Mr. Otto recounts his career in museum leadership, including his time as president of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. He discusses how the museum evolved to become more interactive and engaging for both children and adults, the Omni Imax theater, and the partnership with SMU to excavate local dinosaur fossils. \u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MP4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["FWMSHPOHDO001 (other)"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eFormer President of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Mr. Otto recounts his career in museum leadership, including his time as president of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. He discusses how the museum evolved to become more interactive and engaging for both children and adults, the Omni Imax theater, and the partnership with SMU to excavate local dinosaur fossils.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"]},"provider":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Fort Worth Museum of Science and History"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Fort Worth Museum of Science and History"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/713/original/aviary_default_logo.png?1751992923","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/304/656/small/data?1773424137","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Don Otto"]},"duration":2273.0,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/304/656/small/data?1773424137","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9wTk6BDmiE","type":"Video","format":"video/youtube","duration":2273.0,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Don Otto [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"AVIARY TRANSCRIPT\r\n\r\nTRANSCRIPTION BEGINS","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=0.0,0.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Introduction: The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, Fort Worth, Texas. An interview with Don Otto, August 11, 2025. Paleontological Oral History Program","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=0.0,8.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: My name is Don Otto; I've been in Fort Worth most of the time since 1975. I grew up in Nebraska. So, we made our way south to where the weather is much more pleasant some of the time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=8.0,25.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Introduction: Can you talk about your connection to the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=25.0,34.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: It may be useful to give a little context of how I got here and why I tried to lead the museum in a certain direction when I was here. I started out in a museum in Hastings, Nebraska, Hastings Museum, a fairly...a medium-sized history and natural history museum. I was, as a newly minted college graduate, I was working for the Kansas-Nebraska Natural Gas company. I'm very happy with the job, and I thought it had real growth potential in several states. But I kept getting this call from this museum director that I had met a few times, saying, “Don, I think I have a job you would love.” And I said, “I have job I love, Burton. I thank you very much.” He called four or five times, and I finally said, “Okay, Burton, I'll come and talk to you.” And he was right. He had a job I would love. So I took the job as the exhibits director, and it was a small museum. So we got to do a lot of things, all of the exhibits and the school programs and the custodial and the care of the collection, all kinds of things. And it's a it's a pretty large collection, so it's a great little place to learn. But we got to learn from top to bottom how a museum works. And then four years later, I got a call from the guy who was the head of the museum program for the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka. And he said, “Don, I think I have a job you would love.” So I've heard this before, but OK, I'll come and look. And sure enough, he did. So we went to Topeka. I became the museum director, essentially, of the Kansas State Historical Society at Topeka, and it was a relatively small facility right downtown across the street from the capital. But we were planning for a major new museum on the outskirts of Topeka. So I got to go through the whole planning process for that new museum as well as figuring out how to do traveling exhibits with artifacts. So we were planning for a new museum for the Kansas State Historical Society and did all the planning. Then I got a call in a two or a half year down the road from a guy named Helmuth Naumer who was a director of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. And he said, “Don, I have a job you'd love.” [laughing] To make the story short, we came to Fort Worth, and I was director of museum school for two years. And then Helmuth decided to leave and go be the director of the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, and he suggested I should apply for the job. And I thought he was kind of silly, but I applied. They interviewed people from around the country, and for some reason they took a chance on me. And so for the next 26 years, I was president of this organization, which was a great experience most of my career. But we brought to this place a different view of how an audience may interact with a museum. You know, it was the children's museum. In the minds of all the Fort Worthians, it is the Children's Museum, and it still is in many ways. But our goal was to figure out how to make it an institution where adults could feel comfortable learning as well, and not just have to come when their young children were wanting to come, they could come on their own. But how do you do that? And we didn't have a deep experience in how to do that. So we decided to look at our museum school because I was director for a couple of years. I saw firsthand how three, four, and five-year-olds learn and how much they can retain and how excited they are about learning. And why is that? So we looked at it from all sides and what, you know, that hands-on thing has something to do with their ability to remember things, retain all this fairly complex information, and parrot it back. My daughter went through the program and I went, wow, how is that a three and four-year-old knows these kinds of things? So we thought, can we apply that idea to our exhibit program as well so that visitors who are not in museum school can get the same kind of an experience? And so we began figuring out how to do that and one way was I happened to be an acquaintance with a guy by the name of Goery Delacote. Goery was a big old teddy bear of a Frenchman who was a director of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. That institution was actually founded by a guy by the by the Frank Oppenheimer who was the brother of Robert Oppenheimer who had some little Manhattan Project he had to do. Anyway, Frank was a very interesting guy. He was a physicist and a rancher and a college professor, but he brought to the Exploratorium the idea of figuring out how to get people to think about innovation and creativity and exploration on learning how science works and how to learn about science. So they were developing exhibits, hands-on exhibits at the Exploratorium that we thought might be beneficial for us here in Fort Worth. So we developed a little relationship with the Exploratorium, and our first exhibit in that line was an exhibit called Kidspace. And they had developed this exhibit as a traveling show. And so they developed one for us, it was a permanent installation, and it worked. Our general visitors used Kidspace, they stood in line to get into Kidspace and our preschool kids also used Kidspace. So this was an interactive exhibit that was designed for younger children but that's the way we kind of began the whole hands-on idea. And then we did something else that sort of expanded our ability to do that. I was invited to a meeting in Chicago with about 20 of the largest science museums in the country. And we weren't one of those. We were a small institution. I knew some of these people, so we were invited and the idea was these traveling exhibits, these interactive exhibits are very expensive to design, to build, and to maintain for travel. We can't do it by ourselves, maybe we should collaborate. And so we developed, eight of us decided, ultimately decided to be a part of this partnership called Science Museum Exhibit Collaborative. And it ran for 20 years, I guess, where we would, each of us would build one traveling exhibit. Each of us put in money each year for seed money to develop new exhibits, the concepts around new exhibits. We would pick the subject matter as a group that was interesting to most of the members. And then one of the institutions would develop it. Our first one here was Space Spin-offs, the benefit we've gotten from the space program. And we learned a lot. We learned what not to do with a traveling exhibit. Building a traveling exhibit is way different from building a permanent exhibit because it has to be taken down and put back up at least eight times. And so we learned a lot on that in that process. And our second exhibit, Who Done It?: The Science of Solving Crime turned out to be a real winner. It really put Fort Worth on the map from an exhibit perspective because that exhibit set records in all eight member institutions when it was on the floor. The idea it would be on the floor for five months, then these exhibits would travel for a month, and then we would start another five month turn. So on each of these museums, Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, California Science Center, Franklin Institute Science Center, Science Museum of Minnesota. These were the biggest science museums in the country, and it set records for a traveling exhibit. So we were pretty cocky about that exhibit. [laughing] But it also was a revenue stream for us after the collaborative members had that exhibit, because we rented it to other museums around the country and even overseas. So it was a nice revenue stream. But that began our changing exhibit program so that...And they were more adult-oriented, so adults could come and enjoy the museum. And in that whole process, we also did this thing called Omnimax. Bill Davis and I were talking about a new Mary Noble Planetarium because the one that we have, his parents were involved in building the original Nobel Planetarium. It was old, way outdated, and it was too small because our audience had grown. And so we were talking building a 60-foot dome planetarium. Wow, huge thing! And yeah, I was invited...we were quite a ways down the road in that planning...And I was invited to St. Paul, Minnesota to see this new thing called Omnimax. St. Paul had built a 76-foot dome planetarium and put a film system in that planetarium dome. And I said, why do you need to put a film in a planetarium dome? I don't quite get it. “Well, come and see.” So I went to St. Paul. It was cold. But I came out of that show going, “Wow!” Came home, said to Bill Davis, “Bill, we need to put film in our planetarium.” And he said, “Why would you want to put film in a planetarium?” “Let's go to St. Paul, Bill. And I'll show you why.” And Bill came out of that program going, “Why do we need a planetarium?” So that was the sort of beginning of the whole Omnimax idea in Fort Worth. And we ended up in ‘82, I think it was, opening the first dome IMAX theater in Texas. And it did an amazing thing for our audience. We grew the audience from, initially we had about 200,000 visitors a year back in ‘75, ‘77. And we grew it to a million visitors a year, sustained that for over 20 years. The exhibit program just grew because of that. A lot of people came just for the exhibit. A lot people came for the film. A lot came for both. I think we actually sold 587,000 theater tickets one year, which was a great revenue stream for us then so we could do things like dig up dinosaurs. So maybe that's a good place to transition into other questions that you have.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=34.0,695.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: It seems like there was a lot going on during this time period and that the museum was very connected to the community. Is that part of what made it so successful?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=695.0,704.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: Well, part of what made the museum a more connected to the community was that we had exhibits and programs that adults were enjoying without kids even. And because of that, a lot of people wanted to volunteer as well. We had a pretty strong volunteer corps because we couldn't afford to pay enough staff to be on the floor all the time, but we made a commitment, ultimately, to hire part-time staff to be floor staff. To interact with people because some of the subjects we were dealing with were pretty complex. And you know, there's a static exhibit you kind of look at. When you look at an exhibit through glass and you see it, but you may not remember it. If you hear about it at the same time you're seeing it, you might remember it, but if you do something as well, you're probably going to understand. And so, it's combining all of those things together to make an exhibit truly successful. Every exhibit needs some context, you know, what was happening around the world or in other places in this area when this was occurring here with this artifact or with this subject. What is the...so what's the point in this exhibit? Is it relevant to me? It's got to have some relevancy for people to remember it or want to get involved with it. It's got to have some interactivity. Get your body on, get your mind on, get physically involved in something. And those kinds of things make an exhibit successful. So our volunteer corps was very helpful to us. And when we started going out into the field with SMU to help dig up dinosaurs, that volunteer corps were involved as well. There were many times that we had maybe a dozen volunteers out there digging in the dirt, not just staff, not just from the Shuler Museum and from the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, but people who just wanted to go dig up a dinosaur. It isn't an opportunity that comes along every day. And I didn't spend a lot of time out there digging because that was a big project that had to be funded in some way. This money wasn't just falling out of the sky at that point. So we had to figure out how to juggle the activities that we wanted to do from the exhibits and films. We got into film production as well as as exhibit production. And those are all expensive. So now you want to take some of my staff and put them out in the field for weeks at a time. How does that work? So we had to figure about how to keep the...the money flowing to be able to afford to be paleontologists. At the same time, we were other...we did other things in the museum. So I...I had a museum to run, so I didn't spend a lot of time in the field. But we did go out there a few times. Charlie and I went out there one time, particularly this memorable. I'm sure he mentioned, Charlie Walter. We decided one day to go out and help these guys do the job out at the Jones Ranch. And they were busily hauling some huge boulder, you know, with their come alongs trying to figure out how to get it out of this hole so they could haul it over to the SMU's lab. And...but they were they were finding something new that they were excited about. And so, we said, “How can we help?” And they all kind of, you know, Louis Jacobs, Dale Winkler and Jim Diffily and Bill Voss, you know, kind of went, “Well, why don't you guys, here's some shovels, go over there and see if you can find anything over there, and let us know if you find something.” Let the professionals do this, you know, kind of an idea. And so, we went over to a place where they'd been driving their tractor to...that they remove the overburden from the quarry. There was a fair amount of overburden over the quarry, and they had to remove that to get down to where the specimen was. Specimens were. And about the...and they were tractor tracks, you know, they've been going up there all week. And about to second or third shovel pull, Charlie went clunk and hit something. So, we dug around there a little bit, and it turned out to be, looked like a bone to me. And it turned to be a complete humorous from this big animal. And we called him over and said, “I think maybe there's something over here.” And I think it was Jim Diffley that kind of went, “Oh, okay, I'll come over and see.” Because he was pretty sure there wasn't anything. And he went, “Wow!” [laughing] So Charlie is trying to scribe his name on that humorous down there on exhibit, because he found it. We were over there. We were put over there to kind of keep us out of where the professionals were working. It was a pretty funny event. And we did remind them of that a time or two.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=704.0,1016.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: Were there any challenges to find funding or was there more interest because it was a dinosaur?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=1016.0,1025.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: Well, dinosaurs are always an attraction from three-year-olds on up. I was always impressed by how a three-year-old can talk about dinosaurs. They’re certainly in every class, a preschool class, there are two or three kids who are into dinosaurs and can name every one that anyone has ever heard of. Probably spell them correctly. It's pretty phenomenal. But that dinosaur interest doesn't really wane as you grow older. And so, because of the museum school experience, I was pretty sure that dinosaurs were worth looking at pretty seriously. And you're right, it was a difficult thing to say to people, help us figure out how to get this dinosaur out of the ground and maybe in 10 or 15 years, you'll be able to see what it looks like. That was a little difficult, but again, the subject matter is interesting to a lot of people. So, I don't really remember having any difficulty funding it specifically. We did also had a lot of other revenue streams happening that allowed us to sort of divert some support for the dinosaur research and knowing that it was going to be years before we would see the results.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=1025.0,1114.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: By the time that Paluxysaurus came along, you already had a couple of other dinosaur discoveries under your belt. Was that helpful?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=1114.0,1122.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: Well, Tenontosaurus was a big deal for us. We didn't expect to have a dinosaur. We had two dinosaur casts the exhibit for a long time, not from here. When Tenontosaurus came along, we went, wow, we're going to have a real dinosaur. How cool is that? And it's from our neighborhood. So, we made a pretty big deal out of Tenontosaurus dossi. And because we assumed that was the only one we would ever get, we focused on it pretty heavily. And then people kept saying, you know, I think I have, I think I found a dinosaur. Look over here, I think there might be something. And so, over the next decade, of course, I think seven different dinosaur species were found within an hour drive of the museum, which is pretty rare, all dating somewhere between 90 million and 112 million, I think years ago. That early Cretaceous period. So, what was special about it, too, was that six of those seven dinosaurs were new species, and in some cases, new genus as well. And the partnership with SMU was great because they had the professional expertise, the paleontologists, the research capabilities, the lab capabilities for removing these specimens from the very difficult matrix that they were embedded in. And then the museum and the naming, of course, they led the whole naming idea with these new species. Then the museum would become the public outlet for that new information and the repository for the artifacts, for the specimens. And we could exhibit them or do whatever to try to put that new scientific information out to the general public. So, it was a great relationship, a great partnership. But then when Acrocanthosaurus came along, hey, we've got a plant eater and a meat eater. How cool is that? And Acrocanthosaurus, of course, was the only one that was not a new species. It had been identified from a fragmentary skeleton in southern Oklahoma a few years before. But we actually have a, we actually made those three-dimensional models of Acrocanthosaurus and Tenontosaurus, again assuming that those were our two real serious dinosaurs that we would have. In fact, there's a, I just ran into the other day to a picture of me sitting on that dinosaur in Tucson where it was made, on Acrocanthosaurus in Tucson in the lab where they made that for us and somebody handed me a cowboy hat and I rode that thing, so we got that. So, it was...that was kind of a nice a nice new thing for the museum to be involved with that it came by accident. It came by surprise. We didn't know that we would have local dinosaurs so plentiful here. Everything came together and we were, we had our hands full because we had a lot of different things going on. That's why we love this business because you never do the same thing twice.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=1122.0,1321.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: What do you recall about Bill and Decie Jones?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=1321.0,1330.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: Well they were very...The Joneses were very nice people, are very nice people. He's passed, but they were so generous with their time and with their place. I think we spent 15 or 16 years bugging them about this stuff on the ground, but they were excited. They were excited about it. They were so supportive. So, you don't run into that long-term relationship very often with that kind of a project. It was great. Of course, the staff and the volunteers, both SMU and museum, spent a lot of time down there camping in a rough camp, although it was a nice tree, nice shade trees and a nice big fire every night in the fire pit. But still, it was pretty rough camping, spending a week or two down there at digging dinosaurs. Quite a commitment for a lot of folks. I'll tell you the people at SMU were amazing, what they brought to this relationship, the whole professional attitude about taking these dinosaurs seriously and making a big deal out of them.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=1330.0,1407.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: What were your thoughts when it was suggested that this might be yet another new species of dinosaur?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=1407.0,5006.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: Well, this one was...this one looked like...the Paluxysaurus jonesi looked like it was going to be something special because of the size and the fact that it was a new species was an added benefit. But to visualize what an animal 60 feet long might have looked like, 12 feet tall, my goodness, that's quite an animal. And here we were, finding parts of that animal. That were intact. I mean, I remember the first big vertebra they brought out of the ground, about half the size of a Volkswagen, you know, this huge vertebra. This is from an animal that walked here in North Texas and made tracks, left tracks probably. So, it was pretty special to think that we were going to have that kind of an animal on the exhibit. And of course, we also thought that man, that's going to be expensive to figure out how to make that animal whole and mount that animal in a way that can be exhibited. So, yeah, it was pretty special. I didn't get in on the tail end of that because I left the museum in 2003 and before it was put together and articulated, we just had parts of that of those animals. There were more than one individual in that quarry. But before we were able to put that animal together, I had left the Museum to go run a museum in Oklahoma.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5006.0,5102.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: In your opinion, what was the biggest challenge to the project overall?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5102.0,5111.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: Well, perhaps the biggest challenge for that kind of a project is the length of time it takes. And to sustain interest in a project for 15 years is no small task because you don't see...results don't come quickly. So, it takes a dedicated individual to retain, to stay interested in that kind a project over that long period of time. And it takes a commitment from the institution to allow that to occur. Because it, you know, digging dinosaurs was never on our agenda before Tenontosaurus showed up. And then all of a sudden, we're in the dinosaur business long term. So, it really kind of changed the complexion of this museum and what people thought about this museum. Now we have a major dinosaur collection to go with all the other great stuff that we have.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5111.0,5168.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: Aside from excavating a dinosaur, were there any considerable successes with this project that you didn’t foresee?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5168.0,5177.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: Well, I think one thing that we didn't foresee with this, all of it happened after I left the museum, was that that little 60-foot animal became the Texas State Dinosaur. Which is pretty cool that we have the specimen that is the type specimen for the Texas state dinosaur.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5177.0,5199.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: Can you talk about the Lone Star Dinosaur Institute?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5199.0,5208.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: The Lone Star Dinosaur Institute kind of really got rolling after I left more than while I was here, but we started with it. With TCU, we started early on a program to figure out how to teach teachers how to teach science, and we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what a new curriculum might look like. And we also took that program statewide. With the Texas A\u0026M University system. I think there were 10 schools, if I remember right, in that system. And we took professors out of the classroom, brought them to the museum. And they spent three or four days hands-on learning. And many of those people went home and went, “Man, that changed how I teach.” But that institute was a state-wide effort to figure out how to allow our teachers to better figure out how to teach kids about science, and hands-on learning was a major piece of that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5208.0,5282.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: What advice would you give to someone who wants to work in a museum?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5282.0,5290.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: Well, in...when I got into the museum business, there was no educational program, no formal program to prepare you to be a museum person. I don't know if there still is or not. I mean, there's a lot of programs out there, but I suspect on-site learning is still a major piece of how you become a museum professional, depending on where you focus, what area of the museum business you focus on. Because the museum business is a very diverse business, if you think about it. Take this institution. You have a film theater, although it isn't film anymore. You have a museum school, largest preschool in the country as far as I know in a museum. You had an exhibit program, you have an exhibit design program, and you have a public programming program. You a curriculum-based kind of effort with our schools. There's a whole...you have a retail store. You have a concession, food concession. You have a food service. So, there's a lot of businesses under this roof that all sort of have a different focus, but they all make the whole. And so, when you say, I want to get into the museum business, what area of the business do you want to be in? The other area I didn't touch on was, of course, care for the collection, curatorial side, the preparation and proper care and documentation of your collection, the archives piece of that collection there. And of course, this museum has a focus on physical sciences, as well as the natural sciences, as well as history, and as well the arts. So, it has several focuses that will take expertise in certain areas. So, to be a museum person, if you really want to be a museum person, you kind of have to decide what piece of that do I want to do? Maybe I'm in the accounting department. You know, there's all kinds of ways to get in the museum world. It's a great business to be in because it's a business focused on helping people learn and become the best they can be. We change lives, I always say. These museums change lives. They change how you see the world. And so that's a pretty cool business to be in. So, if you want to get into the business, yes, there are programs and universities to give you the basics of what that means. Depending on what piece of the museum business you want to be in, then you can specialize. But most museum people are generalists. You get to do so many different things and you get to learn something new every day. Yeah, I mean I have got degrees in biology, geography, and geology. I didn't use most of that in my museum career. [laughing]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5290.0,5472.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: There was so much going on when you were president of the museum. What is your favorite memory from that time?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5472.0,5481.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: You know, I don't have any real strong, specific idea or feelings about what was special, but there are a lot of little things that were special, and it happened over and over. One of the special things to me has always been watching people's eyes light up when they get something that you presented. You figured out how to present an idea or a subject, a pretty complex issue of some sort, and people go, “Oh, I didn't know that, I never thought of that before.” So, you're helping people begin to see the world in a different light, perhaps, begin to understand something that they never understood, maybe never were interested in understanding. But now they came to the museum and they go, that's a pretty cool subject, I've never thought about it before. So, you are allowing people to grow. And that happens every day in your galleries or in your programs. And that's always special.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5481.0,5545.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: How did all pf your experiences at the Fort Worth Museum influence your work in other museums after you left?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5545.0,5613.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: When I left here in 2003, I thought that I had semi-retired and would be a consultant the rest of my career. And they hired me in Oklahoma City to be a consultant for a year because Oklahoma City has this 400,000 square foot museum facility that a guy by the name of Admiral John Kirkpatrick built with the idea that Oklahoma needed a great hands-on science museum. It had waned over the years, even though they had a rather large foundation, endowment. It was struggling, struggling with audience, struggling with change. So, they hired me to help figure out how to revitalize that place. 400,000 feet is a lot of space, considering that this museum at that time was about maybe 50,000 or 60,000 feet total. And so, we...we went up there and then ended up being the director for 14 years. I didn't intend to stay that long, but the the director left, they hired me, and we were able to turn that museum around and make it successful. It is now, in my view, I'm a little biased, but I think one of the top ten science museums in the country because it's huge. It has a very diverse collection from airplanes to even automobiles to space hardware. It's got incredible science collections. It also has a brand-new planetarium. It has an art gallery that looks at science and art and how they are linked, which is a kind of a unique space. It has a...it's program is a kind of a program where you can spend a day, literally spend a day and not see it all or do it all. And so that made me happy, but that...when I went there, it was called Omniplex. Nobody outside of Oklahoma City knew what that meant. I suggested we change the name and we ended up calling it Science Museum of Oklahoma. So, it's the same place. Next to the zoo in Oklahoma City, but it is now truly a first-rate, hands-on science museum that I think they could be very proud of. One of my vice presidents is now the president, and she's doing a great job. I suggest you go see them one day, because it's a...it’s a fun experience.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5613.0,5726.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: Is the Science Museum of Oklahoma's mascot, Otto, named after you?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5726.0,5735.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: I always say he’s my bionic son. But anyway, when we decided we needed to do a mascot, we were searching for a name. And my brother at that point was using as his email address or I guess email address, ottomatic and O-T-T-O-matic. And so Otto became...his full name is Ottomatic, but he goes by Otto. And so, everybody thinks he's my bionic son. And we're about the same height. [laughing] But it's so funny that that mascot has become such an attraction. Several times a week, I would hear “Otto!” Look around and they weren't talking to me. [laughing] But the kids love that silly mascot. And it really has brought together the community in a, you know, if they think about the science museum, they think about Otto. And it worked for the purpose that we decided to do it. But yeah, he's he's really not related to me, but I claim him. But he's kind of a stepson.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5735.0,5811.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interviewer: Is there anything else that you would like others to know?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5811.0,5820.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656/transcript/92311/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Don Otto: One thing I didn't touch on maybe enough was the incredible work that these guys did out in the field with very limited equipment. The come along, you know, the old antique come along was their great piece, their tool to get those huge blocks of stone up on the flatbeds so they could haul them to the lab. But they...it was physical labor. They were just flat-out physical labor, and they did a great job of staying with it for year after year after year. And I didn't really emphasize that enough. Both SMU...of course, SMU had students out there in the field as well as other volunteers. And we had our staff and volunteers out there. But to stay with that very hard work in a very warm environment was impressive.\r\n\r\nTRANSCRIPTION ENDS","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/167481/file/304656#t=5820.0,2273.0"}]}]}]}