Bill Ferris is not that excited by artefacts, despite being the chief executive of the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust, which has thousands of them.
In fact, he has just opened a £600,000 building known as the Big Store to showcase what he describes the "large, lumpy objects" owned by Chatham and the nearby Royal Engineers Museum.
For Ferris, the joy of working at Chatham is not the collection, but the whole operation "What I love is complex and difficult business, and there is nothing more difficult than cultural projects - that is what gives me a buzz," says Ferris, who is also chairman of the Association of Independent Museums (AIM).
"Trying to get something that relies on a large part of its income from tourists to work in a place like Chatham, which is an industrial conurbation that ain't at the top of most people's tourist lists, is a real challenge."
Ferris did not enter the sector by one of the more traditional routes, having originally trained as an accountant, followed by a business degree.
"I met my wife at university and instead of doing a gap year, we moved back to Devon to take over what was a very ailing family bakery business, which we built up. It was my equivalent of a gap year, but it was bloody hard work."
After selling the bakery, he decided he did not want to return to accountancy, and "looked around for interesting jobs". What came up was the commercial manager at the Yorkshire Mining Museum, so he and his family left Devon for Wakefield.
Ferris stayed for about two and a half years at the museum, now known as the National Coalmining Museum for England. From Yorkshire, he returned south in 1990, this time to be the manager of A Day at the Wells, which had just opened in Tunbridge Wells and told the story of the development of the spa town in 1740.
It was operated by Heritage Projects, which manages attractions such as the Jorvik Viking Centre in York and is now known as Continuum.
Ferris stayed with Heritage Projects for 10 years, becoming its national operations director, part of which involved advising troubled Millennium projects such as the Earth Centre in Doncaster.
He was still living in Kent when the Chatham job was advertised in 2000 and he had always watched the site with interest. It certainly fits his requirement for a complicated business. On the cultural side it includes three historic warships, a re-creation of the dockyard in 1758, and the Museum of the Royal Dockyard.
These have now been joined by the 3,000 sq metre Big Store. The site also features 112 residential units, 120 businesses and there is even a naval ropery that produces £500,000 worth of rope each year.
As if this was not enough, there are plans for a major residential development of about 1,000 homes on the site's last remaining major space. All this in the context of Medway, a conurbation of five towns, of which Chatham is one.
"Medway is interesting as you have some of the richest wards in the country alongside the most deprived," Ferris says. "It is a real enigma. I love it because it has that feeling of a place where work really happens, or used to happen."
The opportunity to work in Chatham certainly took a dramatic downturn in 1984 when the naval dockyard closed. The Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust was created to regenerate the area through preserving the buildings and educating the public about their history.
"In 1984 the trust embarked on a plan for a living museum, which meant a place where people lived and worked, as well as the museum element. It is a very integrated regeneration, and 25 years after the establishment of the trust it has delivered exactly that policy, what I call preservation through re-use."
As well as his work at Chatham, Ferris's other main responsibility is as the chairman of AIM. He is fiercely proud of the independent museum sector and the work of AIM itself, despite the demands on his time.
"AIM is brilliant - I have no intention of stopping, but it is a challenge. We are never going to be some high-flying strategic organisation, but what matters is the existence of this wonderful collective membership of 800 people and museums that if it were not for an organisation like AIM, would be forgotten. The issue with AIM is that it is what it is because it is led by its membership."
Ferris is amiable company, but opinionated and forthright about issues he feels are important. Nevertheless, he has taken a bit more of a softly, softly approach to AIM's activities than has been the case in the past.
"In terms of my chairmanship, there are those people who might say it used to be a firebrand organisation, up there on a soapbox shouting very loudly. But I guess under mine and probably Sam's [Mullins] chairmanship, we have become a bit more diplomatic.
"I'm not knocking what was there before, but times have changed and what we are trying to achieve now is a bit more of a diplomatic approach to advocacy and change, which takes a little longer."
In the light of Ferris being a dyed-in-the-wool independent, it is perhaps ironic that the scheme that could raise Chatham's profile more than anything else is a partnership with two nationals - the Imperial War Museum and the National Maritime Museum.
The £13.6m National Museums at Chatham Project will open in 2010 and will display maritime models from the three museums' collections. It will also include a large space for temporary exhibitions. All this will be housed in Chatham's 19th-century No 1 Smithery, a scheduled ancient monument and a Grade II* listed building.
"To be honest, working with the Imperial War Museum and the National Maritime Museum has been pretty straightforward because we did not go to them with a begging bowl saying, 'You have got to help us'. We got together because we all had problems that needed solutions and it all kind of worked. The key to partnership is that it is an equal thing."
So would Ferris consider moving to a national himself? When asked the question, he immediately says "no", before hesitating slightly and talking about how "difficult and challenging" the independent sector is.
But he quickly launches into the drawbacks of organisations that depend on government money for most of their income.
"There are many large local authority museums and national museums where there are challenges that could be exciting, but what puts me off those types of things is the amount of political influence there is.
"While you are dependent [on government money], you are at risk; governments come and go, ministers come and go, things change. We generate roughly 80 per cent of our income, and I would dearly love to be totally independent.
"I like the independent sector because it's incredibly entrepreneurial," he continues. "If you take this site, we are probably the most eclectic of them all. We manufacture rope, we have residential properties, businesses, all these visitors, and we are a major part of the story of the regeneration of Medway. Where else are you going to get the chance to do all that?"
In fact, he has just opened a £600,000 building known as the Big Store to showcase what he describes the "large, lumpy objects" owned by Chatham and the nearby Royal Engineers Museum.
For Ferris, the joy of working at Chatham is not the collection, but the whole operation "What I love is complex and difficult business, and there is nothing more difficult than cultural projects - that is what gives me a buzz," says Ferris, who is also chairman of the Association of Independent Museums (AIM).
"Trying to get something that relies on a large part of its income from tourists to work in a place like Chatham, which is an industrial conurbation that ain't at the top of most people's tourist lists, is a real challenge."
Ferris did not enter the sector by one of the more traditional routes, having originally trained as an accountant, followed by a business degree.
"I met my wife at university and instead of doing a gap year, we moved back to Devon to take over what was a very ailing family bakery business, which we built up. It was my equivalent of a gap year, but it was bloody hard work."
After selling the bakery, he decided he did not want to return to accountancy, and "looked around for interesting jobs". What came up was the commercial manager at the Yorkshire Mining Museum, so he and his family left Devon for Wakefield.
Ferris stayed for about two and a half years at the museum, now known as the National Coalmining Museum for England. From Yorkshire, he returned south in 1990, this time to be the manager of A Day at the Wells, which had just opened in Tunbridge Wells and told the story of the development of the spa town in 1740.
It was operated by Heritage Projects, which manages attractions such as the Jorvik Viking Centre in York and is now known as Continuum.
Ferris stayed with Heritage Projects for 10 years, becoming its national operations director, part of which involved advising troubled Millennium projects such as the Earth Centre in Doncaster.
He was still living in Kent when the Chatham job was advertised in 2000 and he had always watched the site with interest. It certainly fits his requirement for a complicated business. On the cultural side it includes three historic warships, a re-creation of the dockyard in 1758, and the Museum of the Royal Dockyard.
These have now been joined by the 3,000 sq metre Big Store. The site also features 112 residential units, 120 businesses and there is even a naval ropery that produces £500,000 worth of rope each year.
As if this was not enough, there are plans for a major residential development of about 1,000 homes on the site's last remaining major space. All this in the context of Medway, a conurbation of five towns, of which Chatham is one.
"Medway is interesting as you have some of the richest wards in the country alongside the most deprived," Ferris says. "It is a real enigma. I love it because it has that feeling of a place where work really happens, or used to happen."
The opportunity to work in Chatham certainly took a dramatic downturn in 1984 when the naval dockyard closed. The Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust was created to regenerate the area through preserving the buildings and educating the public about their history.
"In 1984 the trust embarked on a plan for a living museum, which meant a place where people lived and worked, as well as the museum element. It is a very integrated regeneration, and 25 years after the establishment of the trust it has delivered exactly that policy, what I call preservation through re-use."
As well as his work at Chatham, Ferris's other main responsibility is as the chairman of AIM. He is fiercely proud of the independent museum sector and the work of AIM itself, despite the demands on his time.
"AIM is brilliant - I have no intention of stopping, but it is a challenge. We are never going to be some high-flying strategic organisation, but what matters is the existence of this wonderful collective membership of 800 people and museums that if it were not for an organisation like AIM, would be forgotten. The issue with AIM is that it is what it is because it is led by its membership."
Ferris is amiable company, but opinionated and forthright about issues he feels are important. Nevertheless, he has taken a bit more of a softly, softly approach to AIM's activities than has been the case in the past.
"In terms of my chairmanship, there are those people who might say it used to be a firebrand organisation, up there on a soapbox shouting very loudly. But I guess under mine and probably Sam's [Mullins] chairmanship, we have become a bit more diplomatic.
"I'm not knocking what was there before, but times have changed and what we are trying to achieve now is a bit more of a diplomatic approach to advocacy and change, which takes a little longer."
In the light of Ferris being a dyed-in-the-wool independent, it is perhaps ironic that the scheme that could raise Chatham's profile more than anything else is a partnership with two nationals - the Imperial War Museum and the National Maritime Museum.
The £13.6m National Museums at Chatham Project will open in 2010 and will display maritime models from the three museums' collections. It will also include a large space for temporary exhibitions. All this will be housed in Chatham's 19th-century No 1 Smithery, a scheduled ancient monument and a Grade II* listed building.
"To be honest, working with the Imperial War Museum and the National Maritime Museum has been pretty straightforward because we did not go to them with a begging bowl saying, 'You have got to help us'. We got together because we all had problems that needed solutions and it all kind of worked. The key to partnership is that it is an equal thing."
So would Ferris consider moving to a national himself? When asked the question, he immediately says "no", before hesitating slightly and talking about how "difficult and challenging" the independent sector is.
But he quickly launches into the drawbacks of organisations that depend on government money for most of their income.
"There are many large local authority museums and national museums where there are challenges that could be exciting, but what puts me off those types of things is the amount of political influence there is.
"While you are dependent [on government money], you are at risk; governments come and go, ministers come and go, things change. We generate roughly 80 per cent of our income, and I would dearly love to be totally independent.
"I like the independent sector because it's incredibly entrepreneurial," he continues. "If you take this site, we are probably the most eclectic of them all. We manufacture rope, we have residential properties, businesses, all these visitors, and we are a major part of the story of the regeneration of Medway. Where else are you going to get the chance to do all that?"
Bill Ferris at a glance
Bill Ferris was born in Devon in 1958. He trained as an accountant and then went to university to study business.
After university he and his wife took over a family bakery, which they built up and then sold. His first job in the museum sector was as the commercial manager at the Yorkshire Mining Museum, now the National Coalmining Museum for England.
He joined Heritage Projects in 1990 as the manager of its smallest attraction, At Day at the Wells in Tunbridge Wells. He stayed with Heritage Projects for 10 years, becoming its national operations director.
Ferris joined the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust as its chief executive in 2000. He became the chairman of the Association of Independent Museums in 2005.
Bill Ferris was born in Devon in 1958. He trained as an accountant and then went to university to study business.
After university he and his wife took over a family bakery, which they built up and then sold. His first job in the museum sector was as the commercial manager at the Yorkshire Mining Museum, now the National Coalmining Museum for England.
He joined Heritage Projects in 1990 as the manager of its smallest attraction, At Day at the Wells in Tunbridge Wells. He stayed with Heritage Projects for 10 years, becoming its national operations director.
Ferris joined the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust as its chief executive in 2000. He became the chairman of the Association of Independent Museums in 2005.