History shouldn't be musty, he thinks. It should feel fresh.

Of course, a history museum has to preserve the past and educate the populace. But you have to get people's attention first.

History should be -- he'll go ahead and say it -- entertaining.

"We're in the entertainment business," said Howard, who officially becomes the museum's director today. "There are so many other things people can choose from."

Howard, 53, quietly stepped into the job as interim director in March, after previous director Elizabeth Buford's forced retirement took effect. He was hand-picked by Cultural Resources Secretary Lisbeth "Libba" Evans, whose department oversees the museum.

Evans knew Howard from his service with the board of the N.C. Museum of History Associates, a nonprofit fundraising board. Howard had time on his hands, having recently cashed out of a couple of tech start-ups as a wealthy man. He agreed to take the job for at least a year.

But Howard had no interest in a ceremonial, placeholder job. He has big plans for his short stay: bringing in new exhibitions more often, making them interactive, rotating artifacts from the museum's collection, raising millions of dollars from private donors and persuading state government leaders to chip in their share of financial support.

In the four months since he started, he has accelerated the pace of major exhibitions that were in the works and expanded on them. He has been tearing down walls -- literally and figuratively -- to make way for ambitious plans, including dismantling the health-and-healing exhibition that had been there for 10 years.

After a career in business, Howard admits to frustration at the pace of government bureaucracy. But by the time he leaves, he hopes to have built the museum's reputation to the point that it will attract new and repeat visitors, financial support and highly qualified candidates to replace him.

Through choppy waters

That's a big agenda for a museum that has gone through turbulent times in recent years, including a national search for a director that stretched from 1999 to 2001. One candidate accepted the job, then bailed out. Rather than continue the search, Evans appointed Buford, her chief deputy, to run the museum.

Buford, a longtime Cultural Resources employee, was popular with the museum staff. But in December, she announced her retirement under an agreement that prohibits her from talking about why she left.

In January, Evans tapped Howard, without any public announcement, to serve as interim director while another nationwide search was launched. Dissatisfied with the applicants, department administrators asked Howard to stay a little longer. Applicants might have been dissuaded by the fact that the position is exempt from protections of the state personnel act, and a new administration will be doing the hiring and firing in 2009.

He committed to at least a year, but he had one request: that he not be called the interim director. The title implies an uncertainty that can discourage potential donors.

The state is getting Howard practically for free: He wanted to be able to walk away from the job if things got really frustrating, and so his $18,000 salary is just enough to cover health benefits.

One of Howard's first tasks was to seek the advice of his predecessors, including Buford and also James C. McNutt, who left in 1999 to take over a museum in Texas. Last year, McNutt became president and CEO of a wildlife museum in Wyoming, which is where Howard found him.

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