Chevy Humphrey

Museum director Chevy Humphrey was born on September 13, 1964 in Houston, Texas to Richard and Emily Humphrey. Humphrey received her B.S. degree in marketing from the University of Phoenix in Arizona in the 1990s; her M.B.A. degree in entrepreneurship, innovation and marketing from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts in the 2010s; and her doctorate in business administration from Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona in 2019.

Humphrey was hired in 1992 as director of development at the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas. She then became director of development at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas in 1994 before being hired in 1995 as the director of development for the Phoenix Symphony. She then joined the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix in 1998 as its director of development, where she also served as vice president of marketing, executive vice president, and interim CEO before being named in 2005 as the Hazel A. Hare President and CEO, becoming the first African American to hold this position. In 2021, Humphrey was hired as the seventh president and CEO of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, where she is the first female and the first African American to hold this position.

Humphrey has served on the boards of directors for the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute and Education Forward Arizona. She was also a board member and served as chairperson of the American Alliance of Museums and the Association of Science and Technology Centers. In 2019, she became a member of the board of directors for Grand Canyon Education.

During her career, Humphrey has received numerous honors and awards including the Greater Phoenix Chamber’s Athena Award for Women of Achievement. Humphrey appeared in Arizona Business magazine’s Most Admired CEO list in 2011 and in the Phoenix Business Journal’s Fifty Most Influential Women list in 2014. Humphrey is also a Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust Fellow and a BBVA Compass Visionary Leader.

Humphrey and her husband, Matthew Treasure, live in Chicago, Illinois. They have one daughter.

Chevy Humphrey was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 30, 2023.