A Museum to Thrive in – Hertonäs Manor Museum as an Employer

Hertonäs Manor Museum has been around for almost 100 years. Several curators, caretakers and guides have worked atthe museum. The museum is supervised by its owner, the society Svenska Odlingens Vänner i Helsinge r.f., and its board. Mikael Westerback has been head of the board since 1992. He has long experience from museums and he e.g. worked as curator for the art museum Villa Gyllenberg until the year 2009. The caretaker since 1987 is Ulf Nyberg. His grandparents Lisi and Evert Nyberg already worked here in two decades before he stepped into their boots. Since the 1950’s Stara has been taking excellent care of the parks.

A new head guide, BA Ralf Palmgren, started at the museum in 2019. He studies Finnish and Nordic history at the University of Helsinki. He has worked here as a guide since 2004. He has also worked as a guide at the National Museum of Finland and the Clockmuseum (at WeeGee) and as a guide in the city of Helsinki. A new curator also started last year, PhD Eva Ahl-Waris (Univ. Helsinki). Eva has previously worked in various positions at the National Museum of Finland, as researcher at the Finnish museums association, and as a guide at e.g. Espoo city museum (Glims farmstead museum. Eva also works as a teacher and entrepreneur in the humanities. Both Ralf and Eva work part time, but there is plenty of work and various tasks.  

The museum is open on Sundays during the summer. Then you will meet our talented guides. Right now we have many active guides that have studied or study history at the University of Helsinki: DI/undergraduate student Jonas Berg, undergraduate student Saga Brummer, BA Daniela Fougstedt, undergraduate student Cecilia Granö, BA Ted Hellstén, MA Tomi Ståhlberg and Astrid Nurmivaara, who is an authorized Helsinki-guide. The guides participate in developing museal pedagogy and in marketing. Beside Ralf and Eva the guides also work with groups that visit us outside the opening hours.

Our guide Astrid Nurmivaara in action at Knusbacka farmstead in 2019. Photo: EAW.

We also have various types of programs and events. Thus we cooperate with e.g. DOT r.f. (since 2004), Stadin puutarhuri, Tarinalyhty, Restaurant Old Mill, a beekeper (which will be presented later on this year) and many others that you can meet at our events.