Rick West, the former director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian spent more than $250,000 on travel, The Washington Post reports.
West, a member of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, helped start the museum. He served as its director until his retirement this month.
The work took him all across Indian Country. There were meetings with tribes, museum donors and other institutions.
But it also took him all over the world, The Post reports. In the last four years of his tenure, he was away 576 days to places like Paris, South Korea, Austria, Australia and New Zealand. He stayed at top hotels, including the $599-a-night W Hotel in New York City.
As a retirement gift, the museum spent $30,585 on an eight-minute DVD biography of West.
Get the Story:Indian Museum Director Spent Lavishly on Travel (The Washington Post 12/28)
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Richard West's Travel Expenses for Trips to Greece, Singapore, Australia and Peru (The Washington Post 12/28) Relevant Links:
National Museum of the American Indian - http://www.nmai.si.edu
