In the home of country music, it’s good to be the head of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and in a multitude of ways, CEO Kyle Young has been a driving force for one of Nashville’s favorite and most popular institutions for the last 45 years.

When he first applied for a job selling tickets to the museum in 1976 — back when it was in the old barn-shaped building on Music Row — Kyle had never even been inside the museum. Now, he’s running the show and playing an active role in every aspect of the museum’s operation, including (but certainly not limited to) curation of the artifacts and exhibits; organizing the medallion ceremony for the three new artists inducted into the hall of fame each year; planning events and programming; building community partnerships and collaborations; managing the physical space, including the move to the new location in 2001 and the major expansion in 2014; and so much more. One of the things he looks forward to most each year, though, is String City: Nashville’s Tradition of Music and Puppetry, the museum’s collaboration with the Nashville Public Library that tells the story of country music using puppets.

While Kyle tries to limit the number of hours he’s in meetings, a great deal of his job involves working with people. “It’s an interesting gig,” he explains, “because we’re dealing with tourist amenities and we’re dealing with the artist community and the music industry and we’re dealing with Nashville business.” Despite not wanting to be in meetings, his office has itself been the site of some wonderful moments, such as when Dolly Parton and Kris Kristofferson met again for the first time in a decade.

Like so many other industries, the pandemic greatly altered the nature of his job. The lockdown gave Kyle and his team the opportunity to figure out how digital programming works and how to use the internet to reach their audience. Since they redeveloped their programming, their virtual reach has increased from one million visitors every year to more than seven million. Now that everything is slowly opening up again, he’s working hard to find the best ways to marry the digital world and the physical one in a way that makes the past and the present of country music alive and accessible to the world.