Brian King
Executive director
Betty Brinn Children’s Museum
929 E. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee
Bbcmkids.org
Industry: Nonprofit
King practiced law before becoming a seventh- and eighth-grade social studies teacher at Milwaukee Jewish Day School in 2003. Initially, he thought he would want to teach high school but soon realized how much he enjoyed working with middle school students. “They are on the crazy suspension bridge of childhood and adulthood, and on any day they can act like children or adults. I just find them to be hilarious and real and not jaded.”
As Milwaukee Jewish Day School was emerging from the Great Recession, King was appointed to become the head of the school and its director of innovation.
King’s career later “took a left turn” when he decided to start his own furniture and fabrication business, but soon he felt called back to education. “What I found about a year and a half into doing that work was I missed feeling like what I did made a difference. … Ultimately, I felt like the foray into furniture making was more about me than about service.”
In fall 2019, King took the helm of Betty Brinn Children’s Museum as its executive director, succeeding longtime leader Fern Shupeck.
Before COVID-19, King said his goal as a new leader was to “break” apart pieces of the museum in order to put them back together again to build a stronger organization. “I say I was in the process of breaking it and putting it back together, and then COVID broke everything.”
King is a “serial hobbyist,” with interests including cooking, photography and woodworking.
He takes his coffee with half and half, but occasionally strong espresso is “what the doctor ordered.”
