Phil Macdougall
I used to come here for vacation, to enjoy the hotels, and to go down to the river. I was familiar with the automobile museum, but I never, in a million years, thought I’d be working here.
My name is Philip McDougall. I’m the president of the National Automobile Museum, which has a long history. Most people know the name Harrah from the casinos but don’t know its story.
Mr. Harrah had a collection of 1,400 of the most unbelievable cars. And when he passed, he didn’t have a will. The community got together and said you can’t sell all these things. This is part of our community; it’s part of our identity.
We need to keep them here. They raised money to build the museum. The city said we will contribute the land if you get the money to build it. And then the Holiday Inn, who purchased all the assets of Mr. Harrah’s Collection said that if you do all that, we will throw in 175 cars, for a total collection of 1,400 cars. So, all those things came together because the community thought it was important.
In 1989, the museum opened. We want to be a community partner, and we have great events. We have older cars, newer cars, Elvis’ car, Jurassic Park, and Back to the Future. We have a brand new Children’s Educational Activity Center, 3,000 square feet of technology for kids and adults to get hands-on experience on how cars work and how the next generation of technology was created.
We wanted to be different. We wanted to embrace the community, be a community partner. We did a complete renovation, and then we went out with an active campaign, not in that car mode, not museum mode, but outdoor concerts, speaker series, parties, birthdays, and a whole new selection of cars.
The most significant change is having a new exhibit every 60 days. It really is fun to watch a family come in and go in five different directions because we have a new one.
Something for every generation. It’s not just a building or the cars that are in here; it’s the people, the livelihoods of everybody around this town, that keep us going. The Downtown Partnership has been a lifesaver for us.
It’s just helping us overwhelm the day-to-day challenges we have. Like any business downtown, we can’t make it without addressing the security issues and communication, and it’s all one big team down here.
So the restaurants help us, the businesses help us, and everyone here—we all kind of depend on each other—and that’s what we’re trying to bring to the equation: another partner who can help us all be a little stronger in a bigger community.
I see a greater emphasis from the Downtown Partnership, from the elected officials, than from the community leaders on getting together and saying we want to succeed and grow as a group. No silos, the restaurants, the businesses, the gas stations, everybody that’s here has to get a common bond. Otherwise, we’re going to fail.
It’s storytelling, it’s camaraderie, and we had that not only with us in the museum but also with all the local businesses downtown here. We have the same common bond and passion. Downtown Reno is the place to be. It’s a family place, and it has something for everybody.