a title he held for 21 years. He had also worked at various prestigious museums, such as the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. Upon coming, he convinced Max Fleischmann, heir to the Fleischmann Yeast fortune, to build Fleischmann Auditorium as a condition of his employment. Coggeshall was later a key player in the foundation of the California Association of Museums and the Western Museum Association. Following Coggeshall, Dr. Vertress L. VanderHoof, a research geologist from the University of California, Berkeley, was hired as director. In 1965, Dr. Frederick H. Pough became director; he was a vulcanologist and mineralogist from the American Museum of Natural History. In between the tenure of these last two directors, interim directors were recruited from staff and an outsider who lasted only a short time. In 1972, the museum hired Dr. Dennis Power, an evolutionary biologist specializing in birds on islands. Power was a native Californian who at the time was an Associate Curator at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. He stayed until 1994 when he was recruited to be the executive director of the Oakland Museum of California, 22 years being the longest tenure of any of the museum's leaders. From the 1960s through the 1990s, the museum had a large role in the field of environmental action. Museum scientists helped establish the whale stranding network and participated in the California Condor Project. Museum staff also undertook contracted biological and anthropological surveys, among the most significant being the initial studies for the National Park Service that eventually led to the creation of Channel Islands National Park. Albert Einstein, who was visiting the museum with his wife in 1931, remarked, "I can see that this museum has been built by the work of love." Exhibits The museum is renowned for fine dioramas of birds, mammals, and southern California habitats. These were illustrated in the 1930s and 1960s by famous artists of the California school of plein-aire painters. Among the most notable of these is the Bird Habitat Hall featuring mounted specimens by staff members Egmont Rett and Waldo Abbott and background paintings by Ray Strong. The museum is also known for its halls of marine life, geology, and Chumash Indian life, as well as an art gallery dedicated to antique natural history prints. It has collections of over 3 million specimens and