It didn’t take long for Mark W. Barker to note the incongruity of a man from Cleveland being ultimately in charge of a museum in Toledo when he was introduced last week as the National Museum of the Great Lakes’ new board chairman.
But Mr. Barker, who as president of Interlake Steamship is in charge of one of the Great Lakes’ pre-eminent freighter fleets, said he’s no stranger to the Toledo waterfront and is familiar with the local port’s history.
“We have a lot of ties to Toledo and the maritime side of it,” both in terms of cargo movement and vessel maintenance and repair, Mr. Barker said during a reception Tuesday at the riverfront museum in East Toledo.
Mr. Barker, a certified marine engineer who holds a master of business administration degree from Case Western Reserve University, has been a board member with the Great Lakes Historical Society — now also the museum board — since the early 2000s and noted that Interlake has been involved with the society since its founding 75 years ago.
“They have a great passion for the Great Lakes as well as a great passion for their business,” Andy Dale, the chief operating officer at Hylant in Toledo and a member of the museum board, said of Interlake and its president.
Mr. Barker succeeds Bill Buckley, who as the board’s chairman from 2013 to 2018 oversaw the historical society’s move in early 2014 from a smaller museum in Vermilion, Ohio to the Toledo site on Front Street.
Mr. Buckley “has put us in a great spot,” said Mr. Barker, whose election as the new chairman was recommended by the museum board’s governance committee.
Mr. Barker touched on cooperative programs in the works involving the Toledo Zoo and Toledo Lucas County Public Library system as well as the museum’s ongoing effort to add a lake-vessel pilothouse, liberated from its former ship during a barge conversion, to the museum’s local exhibits.
The museum also is involved in cooperative promotion of other Toledo-area tourist attractions, Mr. Barker said. It has vital roles in preserving and documenting the history of Great Lakes shipping, public education and outreach to promote the lakes’ importance to the national economy and heritage, and underwater archaeology, he said.
“I don’t like to talk about shipwrecks, but they happen,” the shipping executive said with a shrug.
Interlake operates nine freighters on the Great Lakes and has a 10th under construction. When launched, it will be the lakes’ first new U.S.-flag ship since the 1980s.
First Published March 2, 2020, 3:37 a.m.
