Visitor Lead Associate

The Visitor Experience Lead Associate serves as a key shift supervisor and operational coordinator within the Visitor Experience Department at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). Rooted in JANM’s core ethos of warmth, active listening, thoughtful engagement, and cultural respect, the Visitor Experience Lead ensures a premier, welcoming experience for all museum guests.

Reporting directly to the Visitor Experience Manager, the Visitor Experience Lead provides front-line floor direction, shift guidance, and break coordination to Visitor Experience Associates. The Visitor Experience Lead Associate opens and closes ticketing operations, enforces cash handling and financial controls, oversees venue setup for indoor galleries and outdoor campus events, addresses first-tier visitor escalations, and performs direct front-line visitor service duties.

This role operates across both climate-controlled indoor venues and outdoor plaza spaces on a flexible schedule that includes regular weekend and evening hours.

• Serve as shift supervisor when the Visitor Experience Manager is off-site. Review daily schedules of visitor groups, school tours, and public events with Visitor Experience Associates on duty. Coordinate floor rotations and break schedules across galleries, front desk, Hirasaki National Resource Center, and outdoor stations to maintain seamless staff coverage and high service standards.
• Open and close ticketing desks daily. Balance cash drawers, ensure Point-of-Sale (POS) systems, credit card terminals, and ticketing software (Altru CRM) are operational, verify daily deposit accuracy, secure end-of-day cash deposits, and reconcile and submit accurate daily sales reports to the Finance Office. Criminal Background check is required.
• Serve as the primary floor contact for Visitor Experience Associates handling complex visitor inquiries, customer service complaints, accessibility requests, or gallery policy questions. De-escalate challenging situations with empathy, active listening, and sound judgment in alignment with JANM policies.
• Oversee daily operational setup for public spaces, indoor galleries, programs, and events. Maintain supplies, set up and strike way finding signage, ticketing banners, and visitor engagement collateral across indoor and outdoor campus spaces. Verify that gallery lighting, multimedia features, digital displays (Bloomberg Connects, AR/VR), and staff communication devices are charged and fully functioning.
• Perform all core Visitor Experience Associate duties during assigned shifts: greeting visitors with warmth, selling general admission and event tickets, sharing exhibition information, guiding group check-ins, and fostering a culture of belonging for all guests.
• Actively monitor assigned gallery posts and outdoor program areas to protect museum collections and ensure visitor safety. Document and report any facilities issues, rule violations, safety concerns, or unusual incidents promptly to Security, Facilities, and Exhibitions teams.
• Staff members must be able to work with visitors of all ages to support the various events sponsored by the Museum. Each staff member will be expected to work on a minimum of three museum-wide events per year:
  • JANM’s Gala & Online Auction-(off-site) typically held in the Spring (April-May)
  • JANM’s Oshogatsu Family Festival (usually 1st Sunday in January)
  • JANM’s Natsumatsuri Family Festival (Saturday in August)

This list is not exhaustive and may be supplemented as necessary. Incumbent will perform related duties as assigned.

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are…