Smith steps into museum role

There is a new face at the Kauri Museum in Matakohe, but it will be a familiar face to many.

Former Kaipara Mayor Dr Jason Smith has been appointed museum director, following the early departure of former director Barbara Hilden, who has returned to Canada for family reasons.

Dr Smith, who has been acting director since August, is a fifth-generation descendant of Matakohe Albertland pioneers, for whom the Kauri Museum was dedicated.

He is very familiar with the kauri story, and had a Matakohe-based small eco-tourism business called Kauri Country, which was a New Zealand Tourism Award Finalist for Eco-tourism in 2000. His doctorate was about New Zealand’s creative economy and the importance of non-city places. It was inspired by the fact that The Kauri Museum was a success “in the middle of nowhere”, which defied popular global economic development theories.

In 2011, Smith was senior policy advisor (Auckland) at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, focused on museum and cultural space strategies in the city. Most recently he was a two-term Kaipara District Mayor until 2022.

He says kauri tourism, economic development, cultural policy and a strong sense of local place are in his DNA.