John Kastner has the privilege of having two prestigious careers at Stratford institutions now. First, he worked for 33 years as a journalist at the Stratford Beacon Herald. Now, he is retiring from his position as general manager at Stratford Perth Museum after a decade at the helm.
“There’s more than one way to make your community richer,” Kastner told StratfordToday. “And we’ve been successful in that and I’m equally proud of that as I am of the exhibits we have.”
Kastner has been the general manager for more than a decade. Reflecting on that time, he revealed to StratfordToday a plethora of fond memories and a sense of pride when thinking about when he came on, and where the museum is today.
After leaving the Beacon Herald, Kastner said he had no ambition or desire to do anything else, though saw an ad for the position he now holds in the Globe and Mail.
Having no experience in museum management, Kastner’s only credentials were his English and history undergraduate degrees. Still, he applied, had an interview, and secured the job by 2013.
Kastner later discovered that out of the handful of people they interviewed, he was the only one that didn’t have a background in museum management.
He also later discovered that it was his career as a journalist which pushed him forward. As a reporter and editor, Kastner was successfully telling community stories every day – in a way exactly what every museum strives to do.
Even so, it was a gamble to hire him, Kastner realized.
“It was a leap of faith,” he said.
David Stones was the board chair of the museum at the time of Kastner’s application. Coincidentally he is also the board chair now that Kastner has announced his retirement.
“We wanted to reposition the museum as a destination for more than just traditional museum exhibit attractions,” Stones is quoted as saying in the retirement announcement post. “We needed to attract people to the site. And for that we needed an inventive, creative leader, a strong communicator with honed outreach skills, coupled with business acumen and a passion for local history.
“That job description had John’s picture on it and the guy’s delivered in spades.”
In his interview, the board asked what he would change about the museum. Kastner replied honestly. He said he did not know – though he would in six months.
True to his word, after six months Kastner realized there were certain things which needed updating. There were quite a lot of storage areas not being used to their potential and the main entrance was not inviting, for starters.
Chiefly, it was Kastner’s ethos of telling stories that the community is interested in, rather than just community stories, that pushed the museum to have such huge success since he came on board.
“Talk about the skill set of a journalist,” Kastner reasoned. “I’m sitting in the newsroom and somebody started a conversation, well that’s a story. We should do a story about that. It’s the exact same mentality (for the museum).”
It was that mentality which prompted the museum to pursue Shakespeare’s First Folio, the Franklin Expedition exhibit, the Anne Frank House exhibit, and the famous Justin Bieber exhibit.
Admittedly some of those exhibits have a tenuous connection to Stratford and Perth County. The connection for the Franklin Expedition, for example, is one of the financiers for the failed arctic expedition was from the region.
Being integrated in the community and capitalizing on these connections, whether small or big, was crucial to the museum’s recent success. It allowed them to pursue larger exhibits, like the Anne Frank House exhibit when the Stratford Festival put on the Diary of Anne Frank in 2015.
Definitely the largest exhibit in terms of impact is the Justin Bieber exhibit, which was record-breaking before it even opened.
As Kastner explained, it was a Thursday when they announced it, Friday when he made the rounds on national news shows, and Saturday when he heard Ryan Seacrest talk about it on the radio.
The Bieber exhibit's grand opening gave the museum its first $10,000 day and a line up around the building by 7 a.m. The museum was scheduled to open at 10 a.m.
After such a busy and hectic schedule, Kastner is looking forward to time off, though not completely. He is considering taking on more responsibility in Hockey Canada, in which he serves as chair of one of its members, the Ontario Hockey Federation.
He is also considering getting involved in the development of the Grand Trunk Block, as that project gets underway.
“That sort of interests me, but I’m not sure I interest them … so we’ll find out. I certainly welcome the idea of taking a breath … somebody calls me up and says ‘do you want to play golf?’ I don’t have to say ‘well I work tomorrow.’”
In his office at the museum, Kastner has an op-ed from his time at the Beacon Herald hung up. It is a memory of his career at the newspaper but it’s also indicative of his historic love of the institution, even before he ever dreamed of joining.
“The Stratford Perth Museum, like history itself, has a lesson for us,” writes Kastner, circa 2009.
Kastner himself leaves a historic lesson for the next person to take the helm:
“Not to be hyperbolic, but (the museum’s) future was in peril,” he said, recalling when he first came on board. “I think I leave the place in good structure … but I always say it doesn’t matter how far you go down the road, you’re the same distance from the ditch.
“There’s great bones, great structure, excellent relevance, a much better fiscal shape, but it’s a cautionary tale.”
Kastner steps away in December this year. Until then, he continues to steer the museum.