COOS BAY - After a four-month search, the Coos Art Museum has hired a new executive director. Steven Broocks, most recently the curator for the city art collection of Rocky Mount, N.C., will begin work at the museum Aug. 1.

Former director MJ Koreiva resigned from the museum without notice March 8.

Before taking the North Carolina job, Broocks had lived in the Northwest for almost two decades, with one year in The Dalles and 18 in Seattle.

“It feels like coming home,” Broocks said Thursday of moving to the South Coast. “The visual beauty almost gives you a headache.”

Upon reporting for duty, however, Broocks' headache will be building financial support for the nonprofit museum.

“My major goal is going to be consolidate and grow the support for the museum itself,” Broocks said. “I have a feeling that a real good groundwork has been laid, but it needs to be developed.”

Broocks said he would make contact with community groups and promote the idea of the museum as a benefit to the region and a draw for tourists.

“I want to work with all of those groups,” he said. “The area is small enough that you really can't ignore anybody.”

One group in particular that Broocks will have to focus on is the museum's board of directors, with whom Koreiva had a rocky relationship.

Broocks said he sees himself as a team builder and that his ability to see different points of view and find consensus is among the qualities that got him the job, which comes with a $35,000 salary.

In a press release, Dr. Gerald Miller, president of the board, said he and the board “feel strongly that (Broocks) will be able to effectively work with the board.”

Broocks also pointed to his experience as director of the Freeport Museum in his native Freeport, Ill., more than 20 years ago as a model for success. He said that museum was in a similarly sized community and similarly going through financial difficulties at the time.

Broocks' career also includes work at the Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum in Seattle and the Maryhill Museum of Art, located across the gorge from The Dalles. He has a master's degree in art history from Northern Illinois University and has worked with pottery for 30 years.

He said it was his interest in pottery in part that led him to the position in North Carolina.

At the Coos Art Museum, Broocks said he has no plans to change the busy exhibition schedule but that it would be a challenge to make the space � percent functional,” though he said the building was wonderful.

Since Koreiva left, the museum has been managed by Ciara Van Velsor, a former intern who was promoted to director of development. In the meantime, Broocks is looking forward to his arrival.

“What interests me is moving to the area, to see something grow and to build something,” he said. “The elements are there and it will take the right person to bring them together instead of tear them apart.”