After all, she argues, it was Portia Sperr, the Montessori educator, who started the museum in 1976 in a corner of the Academy of Natural Sciences. "She gave us a very rock-solid foundation that allowed all of us to take this thing to a level previously not possible," says Kolb, president and chief executive officer.
There was Dorrance H. "Dodo" Hamilton, she of the generous hats and more generous purse, who gave the venture its first million dollars "back when it was a sketch on the back of a napkin." Her largesse has grown now to $7.5 million, making her the largest private donor to the $88 million project.
Others stepped in at arguably even more critical moments.
The idea of moving the museum almost died in 2002 with the collapse of the Penn's Landing development to which Please Touch had attached itself. Kolb was fearful about the reaction of one local funder, the William Penn Foundation.
In fact, the day the project's demise hit the papers, Kolb did get a concerned call from William Penn. But what she also got was an offer for an emergency grant of almost $500,000 to help fund staffing while the project regrouped.
At another organization, she says, the board would have fired her - not because she was at fault when the city's larger deal with Simon Property Group dissolved, but because the museum had spent $10 million pursuing the Penn's Landing deal - money it would never see again - and conventional wisdom says the CEO takes the blame.
Yet board chair Elizabeth B. Cartmell, former chair L. Gie Liem, and board member Jay H. Shah were anything but punitive, she says; instead, they immediately regrouped.
Kolb admits the work of moving the museum to Memorial Hall is not done. The building has major ongoing capital needs. And to make the jump, the Please Touch board took out a $60 million loan.
