Amid ongoing turmoil in global financial markets, it's reassuring that David Hillenbrand, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh president and chief executive officer, feels his institution is "having a sensational year."

Hillenbrand spoke at length last week about the state of the museums, his vision for the future and the search for directors for Carnegie Museum of Art and the Carnegie Science Center.

He credited the "Bodies" exhibition, the two-phase rollout of "Dinosaurs in Their Time" and the 2008 Carnegie International with making this "a fantastic year in terms of visitors."

Admissions are up 63 percent over last year, he said, almost evenly split among the museums, with The Andy Warhol Museum, which tends to have more first-time, out-of-town and foreign visitors, registering the lowest percentage. Memberships are also up, with household memberships up 84 percent over this time last year to more than 30,000, representing more than 110,000 individuals.

Those are the kinds of leading indicators Hillenbrand, a retired Bayer executive, said help the museums determine whether "we're delivering value to our regular visitors."

With a $55 million-a-year operating budget and 1,250 employees, Carnegie Museums is "analogous to a middle-sized company," he observed.

In addition to the four museums -- the Carnegie Museums of Art and of Natural History in Oakland and The Warhol and Science Center on the North Shore -- Carnegie Museums maintains 36 buildings, including research and storage facilities and Powdermill Nature Reserve in Rector, Westmoreland County.

One of Hillenbrand's first priorities when he arrived in 2005, he said, was to "stabilize the finances." Having achieved that, "we're sort of living within our means." He's taking a balanced budget to the December Carnegie Museums Board meeting for a second time this year.

The main contributors to the budget, Hillenbrand said, are admissions and memberships, individual giving, foundation and government grants, and earned income (as from the restaurants, parking and special events). Carnegie Museums' annual draw on invested endowment provides 20 percent of the total operating budget.

Admissions, which drive membership, are the hardest to predict, he said.

As has been the case nationally, the museums' endowment has "shrunk significantly over the last year." If the economic downturn continues, Hillenbrand said that could impact government and foundation grants and Regional Asset District money but added that "those institutions know the value of the Carnegie."

Hillenbrand said it's a little early to predict how much the flat economy will affect exhibition planning, but "that seems to me still doable."

"There are quid pro quo conventions in the art world. You borrow and you lend." Still, even in good times, "insuring a Van Gogh can be a deal breaker in itself."

The Carnegie Museums doesn't tend to purchase a lot of shows. Bringing exhibits to the Natural History Museum in recent years was "a deliberate strategy to attract visitors while the dinosaur hall was shut down ... and it worked. The shows didn't make money, but people came back."

On the other side of the coin, Hillenbrand would like to see Carnegie Museums initiate more revenue-generating traveling shows. More than 6 million people around the globe have attended traveling Warhol exhibitions. An exhibit of Age of Mammals fossils at a Japanese dinosaur museum recently brought "a few dollars" to the Natural History Museum's curatorial endowment.

"One of the things we're looking at is maybe a second venue for [a future] Carnegie International."

"My crystal ball is no better than anyone else's," he said. "I don't feel particularly we're on the brink of any abyss that's going to cause us undue difficulty."

Directors are another story.

In the past two years, directors Bill DeWalt of Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Joanna Haas of the Carnegie Science Center resigned. And next month, Carnegie Museum of Art director Richard Armstrong will leave to head the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York City.

In addition, executive director Elizabeth Reiss and associate director Chris Taylor of the Three Rivers Arts Festival were let go last month. The festival had recently begun the process of severing ties with Carnegie Museums and becoming independent.

"The Arts Festival is really an activity. It's not an organization," and the changes were part of an overall review of "non-mission-aligned" groups, Hillenbrand said.

"Some do have that very natural fit" and continue their relationships with the museums, such as the Arts Education Collaborative at the Art Museum and SciTech at the Science Center.

As to losing three of the four museums' directors in such a short period, Hillenbrand isn't surprised. Citing lengths of service for each, he said, "Actually we've had a lot of stability here."

Hass was at the Science Center for five years, "about the average in the industry," and made a "lifestyle change," moving, as a single mother with a baby, to be nearer to family.

After six years, DeWalt left to "head up his own museum. He left a tremendous legacy here with 'Dinosaurs' up and going and funded."

Armstrong has been here 16 years. "For the Guggenheim to want Richard hardly speaks ill of our museum and certainly makes the Carnegie attractive to director applicants."

Tom Sokolowski, director of The Warhol and the international face of that museum, has been at the helm for 12 years.

"In the business world [those numbers] would be like no turnover. People who love institutions don't like change. But it's often good for the institution and for the person," Hillenbrand said.

"People leave when chapters have been concluded."

Samuel Taylor was appointed Natural History director in April. Search committees have been formed to interview candidates for the Museum of Art and Science Center posts.

Hillenbrand said the financial stability of the museums is a recruitment plus. He's projecting filling the two empty seats by April or May "if all goes well" but said sometimes finding the right person could take longer.

"This is not crisis management," and the museums "should never make a precipitous decision because of time pressure."

One factor that adds a bit of urgency to the selection of an art museum director is that he or she will appoint the curator of the next Carnegie International, a hire that is generally well under way by the end of the triennial exhibitions. The 2008 International concludes Jan. 11. If the search takes a year, that "will put a squeeze on things," Hillenbrand said.

Other staff hires continue. Heather Pesanti, assistant curator of contemporary art, who worked on the 2008 Carnegie International's organization, leaves this month for a curatorial position at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, and Hillenbrand said he expects to fill her position by the end of the year. A gift from The Fine Foundation supported hiring Eric Shiner as the first Milton Fine Curator of Art for The Warhol, which became effective Oct. 1.

Does such changeover in the directorships give Hillenbrand an opportunity to imprint his style on the Carnegie Museums?

"You won't find an imprint that is recognizable in the sense of a signet ring," he answered, explaining that isn't what he wants. On the one hand, he expects to provide a strategy for the future, and, on the other, to give the individual museums and their creative staffs the "freedom to do what they do very well."

What Hillenbrand does continually stress is "the complexity of the organization. Four museums under one roof creates tremendous advantage for us for more robust programming."

To fill his top positions, Hillenbrand is "looking for people who are natural collaborators, who share the same passion for the opportunity these institutions represent, and who can see the value our model offers.

"These are truly international institutions. Certainly in the world of art and the world of science they are considered national treasures and, in many instances, international.

"I'm enthusiastic and intellectually stimulated by the incredible breadth" of the museums, Hillenbrand says.

"Museums are not a thing of the past," he adds. "We need a green light to say growth is OK -- museums can have ambitions as people can have ambitions."