A 12-credit internship in her last semester at Elizabethtown College set Terry (Boyle Baker) Kraft ’91 on the path to where she is today. The executive director of Lancaster’s North Museum of Nature and Science said the internship–a perfect blend of real-world experience, networking and community building–was the starting point of her career.
Though she briefly considered social work, Kraft ultimately focused on communications with the intent to concentrate in broadcasting. “I wanted to be the next Jane Pauley,” she said. “I wanted to connect with people.” However, she said, after hearing her future mentor, Jamie Byrne, talk briefly about public relations at a first-year orientation, she was hooked. She loved her professors – Hans-Erik Wennberg, Bob Moore, Don Smith and Byrne, Kraft said. They gave vivid examples of communications and public relations strategies that had been executed in real-life situations. “Analyzing the Tylenol scandal (of 1982), touring the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to learn about their crisis communication plan—two completely different scenarios of companies that had the public welfare at risk,” she offered as example.
Kraft’s internship was with Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Chamber of Commerce where, she said, she applied her marketing and communication education to real-world events and programs. In addition, and also as valuable, she “met key business and community leaders with whom I worked side-by-side to serve the people of Lancaster.”
After graduation from E-town, Kraft worked for several years as a special events coordinator at the former Doneckers, an upscale clothing boutique, in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. “This built on my experience,” she said, and kept her in the community where she continued to expand her professional network.
For the next 10 years Kraft took “the nonprofit route” in fundraising with the American Cancer Society, where she was proud to serve as the original staff partner for the Lancaster Relay For Life. Ultimately, though, she landed in marketing and education with On-Q/Legrand. There, she managed corporate public relations, advertising, packaging, digital marketing and sales and product training for two brands. She also managed industry trade shows and established relationships with key distributors, dealers and media contacts. “I really took to marketing,” she said. “The more I did it, the more I liked it.”
Then, last year, while working as metro executive director with the American Heart Association, she was approached about possible interest in the North Museum. With good childhood and parental memories of the museum, and considering her respect for the museum mission, she said yes. She became executive director this past February.
The museum, which boasts southcentral Pennsylvania’s largest planetarium and 360,000 natural history and scientific specimens, was renovated last year to make science more approachable, Kraft said. “Today’s audiences engage with exhibits differently. People want more than the one-way conversation of just looking at objects behind glass. They want interaction; they want engagement.”
Drawing from her time at Elizabethtown, from her senior internship and from her wide range of experiences in the intervening years, Kraft has been instrumental in initiating collaboration and opportunities to support STEM education throughout the community, she said. She partners with volunteers, donors and staff members to inspire curiosity, discovery and a lifelong appreciation of nature, science and cultures, while overseeing a $1.4 million budget. She works closely with school groups, after-school programs and STEM-related mentorship programs and, presently, is structuring a 20-year strategic plan in cooperation with staff, volunteers and board members.
And, 15 years later, Elizabethtown College is not far away. Milt Friedly, Elizabethtown College professor of art, has exhibited his art at the museum; Jon Coren, associate professor of biology, “is a wonderful advocate of the North Museum” and the alum still keeps in contact with her communications professors and joins Jamie Byrne each year at Lancaster’s Relay For Life, where they served together as volunteer chair and staff partners for several years.