New Executive Director selected
The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center Board of Trustees announce the selection of Christie M. Weininger as the institution’s new Executive Director. Weininger is the seventh person to serve in the position and the first female. She replaces Thomas J. Culbertson who retired effective August 1. Weininger begins her new duties Sept. 4.

A native of Wyandot County, Ohio, Weininger most recently served as director of the Wood County Historical Center and Museum in Bowling Green. Her nine-year tenure there was marked by a growth in local and statewide partnerships, as well as outreach and programming, including creation of an innovative audio tour of historic sites in Wood County (which received an Award of Merit from the Ohio Museums Association) and selection by the Ohio Humanities Council as host of two traveling exhibits from the Smithsonian Institution.

Previously, Weininger served as curator (1997-2002) and then director (2002-2003) of the Wyandot County Museum, Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

“Christie has established herself as a rising star in the world of history and museum organizations in the State of Ohio. She excelled at bringing renewed interest and vitality in her prior position in Wood County, and is excited by the challenges of taking on leadership of an institution of national significance,” said Hayes Presidential Center Board of Trustees President Stephen A. Hayes. “It is personally gratifying to be involved in the selection of the Center’s first woman director. I feel a kinship with my great-great-grandfather President Rutherford B. Hayes. He was ahead of his time in gender equality, having signed into law a bill that for the first time made it possible for women attorneys to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland appointed Weininger to serve on the state’s Legislative Commission on the Education & Preservation of State History (2009-2010). Her duties included reviewing and making recommendations for the delivery of services and instruction on Ohio’s history by state historical organizations. In March 2012, she followed keynote speaker John Glenn to present closing remarks at Ohio Statehood Day - an advocacy event for Ohio history organizations. Weininger also was one of 18 museum professionals from the U.S. and Canada selected to attend the Seminar for Historical Administration.

Weininger is as an adjunct instructor in the Department of History at Heidelberg University (teaching The Ohio Heritage), as well as in the American Culture Studies Department of Bowling Green State University (teaching Historical Society Administration). Her professional affiliations include the Ohio Local History Alliance (currently serving as President) and the Ohio Academy of History Executive Council (chair of the Public History Committee).

A 1995 graduate of Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, Weininger was a member and vice president of Alpha Lambda Academic Honorary Society. In 2004, she earned a master’s degree from the University of Toledo, where she was a member of the Phi Alpha Theta History Honorary Society and was recipient of the Grosbeck Scholarship awarded by the Ohio Chapter of the Colonial Dames of America.