Museum shapers

The Cleveland Museum of Natural history is celebrating a much-acclaimed rebirth and an alumni power couple helped to make it happen. Larry Sears ’69 and Sally Zlotnick Sears, CWRU ’72, receive prominent mention in a guide to the newly refurbished museum, which recently completed a decade-long, $150 million transformation.

Visitors approach the intriguing complex through Sears Garden in University Circle, where they encounter Viktor Schreckengost sculptures of a mastodon and a mammoth. Inside, they can explore the history of the planet in the Larry Sears and Sally Zlotnick Sears Dynamic Earth Wing.

The couple — the namesakes behind Sears think[box] — contributed $10 million to the museum campaign, according to the publication. In addition, Zlotnick Sears has donated her time and energy as a board member since 2014. Both she and her husband praised the transformation.

Sears, an electrical engineer, described the museum as an important hub of research and innovation, while Zlotnick Sears said a beloved museum had become even more special.

“Now it will be an essential destination in Northeast Ohio and beyond,” she said.

The magazine also makes note of a deeper Case connection, noting that the museum collection started in the 1830s, with the explorations and scientific curiosity of Leonard Case Sr. His taxidermy and natural history specimens passed to his sons, William and Leonard Jr., who assembled the collection in a rustic building near Public Square they called The Arc.

Leonard Case Jr. founded the Case School of Applied Science in 1880. The contents of the Arc became part of the Cleveland Museum of Natural His