Physicist's goal: an inspiring museum
By Amy Scherzer
Published April 13, 2007
Munkith Al Najjar admits it - he's a geek. But he's more of a creative, cool kind of geek.
The kind of techie you invite to a dinner party or cast in a Mac computer commercial.
He plays violin, but began lessons only after learning how to make one. He speaks three languages, not including the one he uses to write 3-D computer animation programs.
Cementing the link between art and science intrigued Najjar enough to lure him from Louisiana where he was chief executive officer of Sci-Port Discovery Center. On April 2, he started his job as president and CEO of the Children's Museum of Tampa.
In his new position, he'll draw on all his varied talents and interests.
"Da Vinci didn't switch heads to go from Mona Lisa to helicopters," he said. "Einstein invented relativity from his pure imagination."
Efforts to erect a new children's museum reached critical mass with the Iraqi-born physicist's arrival.
The city has donated land on Ashley Drive, adjacent to the Poe Garage as part of the Riverwalk restoration. A capital campaign has raised $5-million toward the $20-million goal.
Gould Evans Associates architects are finalizing plans for 50,000 square feet, including galleries, classrooms, an exhibit hall and theater.
Guests at the museum's sold-out Imagination Gala benefit can comment on the designs Saturday.
The museum is on track to open in late 2009.
"This challenges all my skills-management, design, programming and fundraising," he said, eyeing the site of the future museum from his temporary office on the 30th floor of the Riverfront Tower.
He can also see where his neighbor, the new Tampa Museum of Art, will rise on the waterfront. A children's garden will separate the two museums.
"I'm excited about being in the hub of cultural and artistic attractions," said Najjar.
Najjar will also spend time at the current museum on N Boulevard, known in the 1960s as Safety Village and now as Kid City.
When a national search firm proposed Najjar for the president's post in November the museum board was impressed.
"Al has a little bit of everything: physics to playing violin to speaking French to his child... all the components that inspire children," said Heidi Shimberg, board chairwoman.
Najjar, 47, grew up in Baghdad, of Shia descent. His father was a doctor, his mother one of the first female lawyers in Iraq. Before Saddam Hussein's rise to power in 1979, the family was secular, "fairly Westernized," he said.
Everything changed after Saddam, he said. Harassed by the authorities, Najjar fled in 1982, in his third year at the University of Baghdad. He made his way to his brother in Canada, where he learned to speak French first, then English. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in physics from the University of Ottawa. He married, had two children and later divorced. He is now remarried and has a 16-month-old son.
Both parents were killed, his father during the Iran-Iraq war and his mother, then a judge, during the first Gulf War. His sister left in 2002 for Stockholm, Sweden, and only three aging aunts remain in Iraq.
"The Iraq in my head no longer exists," said Najjar, who has spent more than half of his life in North America. "Maybe someday I can go back, but every day seems to be getting worse and worse, under Saddam and after."
A summer job in 1988 turned into a 10-year career at Science North, a family attraction in Sudbury, Ottawa. As program director, then senior scientist, he designed a solar observatory and multimedia theater presentations.
"I took a break from academia and got hooked on informal education," he said. "I like turning kids on to science."
The opportunity to move to the United States in 1998 to open Sci-Port in Louisiana was irresistible. Like Tampa's planned children's museum, Sci-Port sits on a downtown riverfront in Shreveport. Only the steel structure was up when he and his future wife, Nancy Boulianne, arrived.
Over the next decade, he developed 200 math, science and technology exhibits and programming for an IMAX theatre. Named CEO in October 2004, he oversaw the addition of a 25,000-square-foot Space Center, added 90 new exhibits and designed the world's first open access, interactive laser planetarium.
To accomplish all that, Najjar helped raise $11.9-million, which was more than expected.
"On time and over goal," he said.
The very motto he brings to his new undertaking.
Amy Scherzer can be reached at scherzer@sptimes.com or 813 226-3332.
Fast Facts:
Munkith Al Najjar
He goes by "Al"
Age: 47
Home: Renting a condo in Citrus Park.
Family: Wife, Nancy Boulianne; sons, Sami, 16 months, and Bram, 17; daughter, Nadia, 20.
Walk the Talk: Once hosted a Canadian radio show about lively science topics in French and English.
Quote: "I want people to have more questions than answers about the world around them."