The Robert H. Jackson Center Board of Directors has extended the contract of President Kristan McMahon. Submitted photo

The Board of Directors of the Robert H. Jackson Center voted unanimously to extend the contract of President Kristan McMahon for an additional three years at its March meeting.

This extends McMahon’s term through April 2025. At the conclusion of the next contract, McMahon will be the longest-serving president in the center’s history, marking a period of stability and growth for the center and its mission.

“We are thrilled with the progress that Kristan has made in her first three years,” said Leah Weinberg, chair of the Jackson Center Board. “This new contract reflects the board’s tremendous confidence and enthusiasm for Kristan’s leadership and the direction she is taking the Jackson Center, locally, nationally and internationally.”

McMahon was appointed president in April 2019. In her first three years, she has completed a major extension of the center’s historic mansion, providing a new public entrance and accessibility upgrades. She also is spearheading a second major renovation, moving the offices of the staff to the second floor of the historic mansion the Jackson Center calls home, making way for new exhibit and program spaces on the first floor. In addition to her work with the center’s physical location, she has masterfully navigated the center through the recent COVID-19 pandemic, moving and expanding programming online while ensuring the financial stability of the center and its resources. Earlier this year, she led a delegation to Nuremburg, Germany, to mark the conclusion of the 75th anniversary of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, where Justice Jackson served as the United States Chief of Counsel.

“I have many ideas for the Jackson Center’s future, and I am thrilled with the board’s confidence in my leadership and our direction,” McMahon said. “We have significant momentum, and Jackson’s voice is essential today to help address our contemporary challenges and opportunities. I look forward to building on our more than twenty years of success by sharing that Jacksonian lens ever wider and with greater depth.”

Weinberg noted that McMahon’s accomplishments were universally celebrated at the recent board meeting, but that her new contract is as much about the future as it is the past.

“We believe Kristan is the right visionary leader to grow the Jackson Center into future. Her leadership has provided great vision, stability and signals to all who care about the Jackson Center’s work that this is a center on the rise and ready to achieve even greater dreams,” Weinberg said.