Mark Hilbert: Founder of Hilbert Museum - Epi. 180 Host Dr. Mark Sublette

Today's guest was Mark Hilbert, and he has his own museum. That alone is a very unique and amazing thing. This is an individual who started his career in engineering and invented a module that made climate control devices more energy efficient. He was able to patent the technology and then ultimately sell the company, helping him establish a commercial real estate business in California. As you can tell, Mark is a very entrepreneurial individual. Lucky for Southern Californians, he's also a guy who loves art (and I mean, truly loves it). 

He was deeply inspired by art when he was in fourth grade, going to the Southwest Art Museum in Los Angeles. That initial museum visit served as the first domino in a line of many that set in motion something that will help other people for generations, The Hilbert Museum of California Art. 

You see, Mark started collecting pottery, baskets, and textiles, eventually moving into paintings. He got to the point where he had this tremendous collection of paintings. Paintings that were primarily the California genre, as well as native arts. After a while, he said: "Why can't I do a museum? You know, I want to make a place where I can show what I'm interested in and what probably other people are."  So he did it. He had spent the time and energy to be on other museum boards and really came to understand what was necessary for a museum to survive in this day and age.

Mark was able to establish his museum at Chapman University in Southern California. It's amazing for someone to have the foresight, the ability, the time, the money to do something like that, and it's going to be there in perpetuity for other generations, serving over 3 million people in that region. I haven't been to the museum yet, but I am definitely going soon. It's on my list to-do and I can tell it's a really well thought out and curated museum just from the way Mark describes it. 

So this is a fun, interesting, unique podcast talking to somebody who's taken their life's work and energy and money and forges it into something for the rest of us. A very generous, philanthropic something to ignite other people just like he was ignited in fourth grade.