Global Cultural Asset Management, North Adams, MA
This summer, I worked at Global Cultural Asset Management (GCAM), an international cultural asset management and consulting firm for museums. I worked in the research department alongside several other Williams students and helped with a variety of projects. There were three full-time employees in the research department, including Harmon Pardoe ’19. Some of the projects that GCAM has been doing work for includes preliminary plans for museums in digital art, immersive installations, cultural history, and trains. A lot of their work consists of creating lists and crafting descriptions for benchmarks and case studies.
As a research intern, I was able to directly contribute to the presentations of their work by putting together benchmarks and fact sheets for museums, art collectives, and festivals that had similar goals as the proposed projects. I also added my input on which case studies we should use for a particular project and found the amount of exhibition space and visitor numbers for possible benchmark institutions. Some of my broader research skills were used when I researched the history of a given museum subject in a large U.S. city and then I put together a list of the top museums in the U.S. on that same subject. I also complied profiles on potential investors, potential business partners, and a variety of companies and other people that were important to GCAM. On top of that, I helped to develop a (very long) list of all related exhibitions, throughout the world, to a current project. Some of the smaller tasks I was enlisted with were organization-related and finding recent news articles on trends in museums. One of my last tasks was to help develop a lobbying strategy for the company for one of the larger projects. This consisted of identifying state legislators and other politicians who might be interested in the project, writing profiles on them, and searching for government grants that could apply to the project. I enjoyed this task perhaps the most because it allowed me to learn more about local politics and to feel more in touch with the area around Williams. All of my work, however, felt valued and useful to the company, and I appreciated that I was actually able to make an impact over just nine short weeks.
I’m still very interested in art history, and I’m planning on taking two art history courses in the fall, though they are outside of my major and my concentration. I’m very grateful to ASIP for allowing me to explore this potential career path and my diverse career interests. A huge thank you to the ’68 Center for Career Exploration for facilitating; to the Cases for sponsoring my internship; to Harmon Pardoe ’19 for posting the opportunity on EphLink and being an excellent supervisor; and to the rest of GCAM for being so friendly and making my experience so educational and entertaining!
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