Rebecca West
Executive Director & Chief Executive Officer
Rebecca West arrived at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West 30 years ago as an intern with a 6-month assignment. Today, she is the Executive Director and CEO of the Center. Located in Cody, Wyoming, the Center has a 107-year history as an organization founded within the heart of the American West. Rebecca leads a team of 67 full-time and 120 seasonal staff and works closely with the Board of Trustees and seven Advisory Boards. Her passion lies in sharing the complex facets of the West through collections, research, programming and outreach, and community engagement. Rebecca is dedicated to sharing the diverse histories and contemporary significance of the American West to audiences worldwide.
At the Center, she most recently served as Curator of the Plains Indian Museum, as well as the Collier-Read Director of Curatorial, Education, and Museum Services.
In her role she welcomes the challenges of fundraising, strategic growth initiatives and planning, and the development of captivating exhibitions and programs that define the Center’s impact. Through her comprehensive experiences in the museum profession, she gained the foundations of non-profit museum work through collections management, registration foundations, curatorial research and publications, project management, and museum administration. She has had the privilege of contributing to and creating over twenty exhibitions and multiple museum renovations. She has taken part in successful capital campaigns, including the 14.5 million Legacy Challenge that ended June 12, 2024. She was recently appointed to the Wyoming Governor’s Task Force for America’s 250th commemoration, serves on the Cody Yellowstone Regional Air Board, and devotes “on the ground” volunteer hours to local and regional organizations.
Her academic background includes a BA in Art History from Dartmouth College, and a Master’s in Native American Art from The College of Liberal Studies at the University of Oklahoma. As the first female Director of the Center and a working parent throughout her career, Rebecca actively mentors museum professionals to support balanced growth in their academic pursuits and careers. Her adventurous non-traditional journey to leadership speaks to her belief in the power and presence of the arts, histories, and cultures of a complex and ever-changing American West.
