No Shortage Of Names for Smithsonian Successor

She said the Smithsonian also needs a person with a deep commitment to the federal laws governing nonprofit compensation, and an ability to differentiate between the wishes of the deep-pocket donors and the needs of the institution.

An overhaul to the Regents would be a good starting point, said Aaron Dorfman, the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. "The number one thing is to have a board that has the inclination and time to do their duties and due diligence. They have to provide the oversight necessary to run a nonprofit," said Dorfman.

He added that the Smithsonian Board of Regents has too many busy people. It is chaired by John G. Roberts Jr., the chief justice of the United States, and includes the vice president and six other elected officials.

Jason Hall, director of government relations for the American Association of Museums, said the transition provides "an opportune time to rethink goals and priorities." Once the board fine-tunes its priorities, said Hall, then the job description can be formalized. With the Smithsonian's visibility and size, others in the museum world will be closely watching. "You are probably going to require some additional skills on top of the normal to run a multiplex like that," Hall said.

One of the key decisions will be whether to choose a business executive, a scholar or a hybrid.

Several recent high-profile searches for big-city museum executives have delivered both predictable and surprising choices.

James Wood, a former director of the Art Institute of Chicago, was chosen to take over the J. Paul Getty Trust, which operates two museums in Los Angeles. But David Hillenbrand, an executive at Bayer for 28 years, was selected to lead the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

The Smithsonian announced this week that Alan G. Spoon, a regent who is former president of The Washington Post Co., would head the search committee for a new secretary. The other members have not been selected.

"We have gone through a period of rigorous adaptation and an upgrading of our systems. We advanced a lot over the last seven years. It has been a tremendously important period of time. Whatever we do, we are building on that," Rifkin said.