I've worked with volunteers who were great, and paid competent executives management in many a non profit....I've also worked with volunteers, trying to run organization's who could find their own ass with both hands, and I've worked with executives staff who were second rate schmoozing bs and con artists.

While I do appreciate the enthusiasm and efforts of volunteers, but sometimes when you love something so much, you are too close to have the perspective, when trying to run the business side, to be objective and/or realistic about the goals and performance, and hiring someone with those curatorial, marketing, event planning, finance, budgeting, and strategic planning skills, to help.

You get what you pay for in life. And, I've generally found that in my experience, quality generally begets quality, and schlock begets schlock.... So, in either the case of volunteers or paid staff, what you will get, depends on what you are offering, both in experience and compensation, including a rewarding and meaningful professional accomplishment, like running a great RR museum, rather than a mediocre one.

The failure of the Board and Members to have a real or realistic business plan, and measurable performance goals, often from lack of consensus, or factionalism, and cannot answer that "What are we doing, why are we doing it" question, will have a hard time recruiting dependable qualified volunteers, or hiring competent executive management talent. So if you don't have realistic, measurable, or consistent goals and performance measures, it won't really matter who volunteers or who is hired.

I haven't been to Rio Vista in many years, and my experience was okay and met my expectations. But, I'm a rail, so this was not stellar compared to some other RR museums and operations which attract a lot more "public". From these comments, it would appear to be a much more limited experience than my last adventure, and if that is the case, that is unfortunate.