Gerson Bakar was a real estate developer, philanthropist, and a SFMOMA Board of Trustees member from 1988 to 2010. He was born in Petaluma, California in 1938 and raised on a small chicken farm during the Depression and WWII. Bakar attended UC Berkeley before entering into the real estate business. He was asked by Gene Trefethen to serve on the SFMOMA Board of Trustees in 1988 and had prior interest in art after being introduced to an attorney's collection of Matisse. Very early on he was named chairman of the building committee and helped decide the new location for the museum. In this life history transcript, Bakar highlights his involvement with SFMOMA in Interview 13, pp. 425-545. He discusses his entry onto the board, initial efforts to relocate the museum, acquiring the property, raising money, choosing an architect, evaluating other museums, Tom Swift, the design process, the SFMOMA garage and sculpture garden, and the Contemporary Jewish Museum, the Mexican Museum and the Museum of the African Diaspora.