Atlanta History CEO Looks Ahead to Travel, Writing

Retiring CEO Sal Cilella says he’s looking forward to writing and travel when he steps aside from the Buckhead museum post.

After 43 years in the museum field, Cilella says, “This gives me a lot of opportunities to give some time to some things I’ve always wanted to do.”

In five years at the Atlanta History Center, Cilella has brought the Buckhead museum through a period of economic uncertainty, which he calls the toughest fund-raising environment he can recall.

“This is the worst time I’ve ever seen for museums, for nonprofits, but with a good board and a great staff, we’ve gone through it,” he says.

Looking back over his accomplishments, including the renewal of the history center’s accreditation from the American Association of Musuems, Cilella is pleased to be leaving for his successor a master plan to “rehabilitate the museum.”

The long-range plan, he said, will “completely update the old metropolitan frontier exhibit,” making it a more interactive experience for today’s technologically savvy museum goer.

While the exhibit about Atlanta’s development is rich in artifacts, he said there are “things we don’t talk about,” such as the Native-American contribution to the area before the arrival of English settlers. The Civil War Battle of Atlanta and the Civil Rights era are also under-represented, he said. While the history center has an entire wing devoted to the 1996 Olympics, Atlanta’s experience with the Games will also receive recognition in the refurbished metropolitan exhibit.

He also said the Quarry Garden Bridge is “a great enhancement to our site. It links the Swan House to the Museum.”

Along with trips with his wife, Marifred, the head of the Howard School, Cilella is particularly eager to edit the papers of the Civil War Gen. Emory Upton, the subject of Cilella’s 2009 book, "Upton’s Regulars: The 121st New York Infantry in the Civil War."

Upton, who when he was stationed in Georgia after the war took custody of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, remains an influential war strategist, still cited in military journals, Cilella said.

“He eventutally fought throughout the entire war, in all the branches of  the Army, artillery, infanty and the calvary,” Cilella says. Upton ended the war as a calvary commander.

Now he will have an enthusiastic chronicler in Cilella, who leaves the museum in March.