The El Paso Museum of Art has a new director with roots in Texas and Mexico.

The city of El Paso and the Museums and Cultural Affairs Department on Friday announced that Edward Hayes Jr. has taken the post.

“After an extensive nationwide search for the best candidate to lead the El Paso Museum of Art, we are tremendously excited to welcome our new El Paso Museum of Art Director Edward Hayes,” Deputy City Manager Dionne Mack said in a news release. “In his new leadership role, he will provide strategic vision, artistic direction, and executive and administrative leadership for the EPMA to build on its rich legacy, collections, and unique strengths ‒further advancing its excellence and impact in the region and world.”

Hayes is a bilingual art museum professional with more than 15 years of experience working as a curator, exhibitions manager and director of traveling exhibitions.

He was most recently the exhibitions senior manager at the McNay Art Museum in his hometown of San Antonio, where he managed the museum’s exhibitions program, led traveling projects and co-organized select exhibitions that explored the bicultural experience through art.

Hayes previously was at International Arts & Artists in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit dedicated to increasing cross-cultural understanding and access to the arts internationally.

While there, he was director of the traveling exhibitions service, which has produced and toured art exhibitions for more than 25 years in all 50 states, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia, the news release said.

Hayes has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Master of Arts in Art History from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

He was born in San Diego but grew up in San Antonio. He has close ties to Mexico, where his mother’s family resides. Before moving to San Antonio, he lived in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Quito, Ecuador, where his father was stationed.

Hayes begins his new role Tuesday.