Collis resigns as president of Bishop Museum

The Bishop Museum announced Friday that President and CEO Blair Collis has resigned, closing out a five-year run as head of the state’s largest museum.

The museum’s board of directors appointed Honolulu attorney LindaLee Kuuleilani “Cissy” Farm as interim president and CEO and will launch a nationwide search to fill the position, the museum said.

Collis, whose last day will be Friday, could not be reached for comment. A news release does not explain why he resigned, other than quoting him as saying he is pursuing new opportunities.

However, Collis reportedly was under a cloud of suspicion in connection with a loan he received from the museum. The museum’s 2013 tax return shows Collis received a $14,377 loan — $1,541 of which he paid back, leaving a balance of $12,836 by the end of the year.

The purpose of the loan, according to the return, was “professional development costs charged to the museum’s credit card that was subsequently determined to be nonreimbursable.”

Giving loans to an officer of a nonprofit organization is against the state’s nonprofit corporation law. A spokesman for the state attorney general’s office couldn’t be reached for comment Friday night.

Bishop Museum spokesman Lance Aquino said Friday that no one from the museum was available to discuss the issues linked to the resignation.

In the news release, Collis says, “It has been an honor to have served Bishop Museum over the last 13 years and particularly as president and CEO over the last five years. I am leaving to pursue new opportunities knowing the museum is in strong and capable hands. I wish the very best to the board of directors and staff of this amazing institution.”

Also in the release, board Chairwoman Allison Holt Gendreau thanks Collis for his years of service and wishes him well.

Farm is a partner at Goodsill Anderson Quinn &Stifel, where she concentrates on commercial litigation. She has handled business disputes, professional liability defenses, personal injury and wrongful death claims, and land use and Native Hawaiian rights, among other areas of law.

She is also a member of the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation board and serves on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act review committee, a federal panel. She has represented the Bishop Museum on a variety of repatriation issues since 2003, including as lead counsel in litigation.

Farm graduated from Punahou School and the University of Hawaii’s Richardson School of Law. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Scripps College.

“The board is pleased that Cissy Farm has agreed to take on the interim role and we are confident that she will be able to effectively guide the museum during this transitional period,” Gendreau said.

Collis led the museum during a period of shrinking federal dollars and financial instability linked to the 2008 economic downturn. The end of federal earmark spending, largely from former U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, reportedly resulted in the loss of a third of the museum’s income, about $3 million a year.

The Australian native and father of two came under fire in recent months following an announcement in January of a five-year financial restructuring plan designed to streamline the museum’s operations and seek out new revenue sources.

The controversial plan called for raising $10 million by selling off unnecessary properties, including the 12-acre Amy B.H. Greenwell Garden in Kona and 537 acres in Waipio Valley where tenants currently farm taro.

The plan also sought to turn the museum’s full-time scientific staff into casual hires responsible for finding their own research money and to comb through the collections to weed out redundant items or items that don’t fit the museum’s mission.

The plan also called for the renovation of historic Bishop Hall and for $3 million in infrastructure improvements.

Among those critical of Collis were former Bishop Museum archaeologist Patrick V. Kirch, former Bishop Museum researcher/curator Robert Cowie and Mark Blackburn, a prominent Honolulu collector of Polynesian art.

“This is great news,” Blackburn said of the leadership change. “He and the board have run the world’s premier institution devoted to the people and the cultures of the Pacific into the ground.”

Collis also was criticized for canceling a long-planned exhibit billed as the largest display of Hawaiian feather work in history. The show had been scheduled to appear in Honolulu from March 19 to May 23 following a run at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, but Collis said the cash-strapped museum couldn’t do it justice and would try to schedule it in the future.

However, Collis did help to engineer what looks like the permanent return to Hawaii of the feathered cloak and helmet that was given to English explorer Capt. James Cook by Hawaii island Chief Kalaniopuu at Kealakekua Bay in 1779.

The ahu ula (feathered cloak) and mahiole (feathered helmet), on long-term loan from New Zealand’s Te Papa Tongarewa museum, are now on display in Hawaiian Hall.

Bishop Museum board member and former state Budget Director Georgina Kawamura said she thought Collis steered the institution admirably through rough waters.

“I think he did a great job in very hard times,” she said. “I wish him well wherever he ends up.”

Bishop Museum was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop in honor of his late wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last descendant of the royal Kamehameha family. It is home to a large collection of Hawaiian artifacts and royal family heirlooms, including millions of artifacts, documents and photographs about Hawaii and other Pacific island cultures.

Collis was appointed president and CEO of Bishop Museum in 2011 after serving as senior vice president and chief operating officer for three years and filling other roles since joining the museum as director of the Bishop Museum Press in 2003.

Collis previously served as president of the Hawaii Book Publishers Association and was founding chairman of the Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival.

Collis graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa with a international business degree in 1996.