The life and work of Sarah Layton helped give life to “Life,” the new nature exhibit at Orlando Science Center. Snails and sharks played a role, too.
“Life,” which opens to the public Thursday, was propelled by Layton’s $3 million donation from Layton, the largest contribution by an individual in the museum’s history. Her name is part of the 13,000-square-foot exhibit, with entrance signs that read “presented by Dr. Sarah Layton.”
The career path of Layton, an international corporate consultant and philanthropist, has included stops in the fields of medical technology, clinical pathology, education, investing and real estate. As a child, she worked as a welder in her father’s welding shop in Miami.
She moved to Central Florida in 1969 after marrying Allen Layton, who already had a job with Martin Marietta, now known as Lockheed Martin.
“I love working with my hands. I’m basically a blue collar worker at heart,” Sarah Layton said in an interview among the “Life” displays. “We didn’t have much when I was a kid, so we had to work. Everybody worked.”
The Laytons started married life without a lot of money.
“We were good money managers, which is really critical. You have to save in order to invest. So I never had any mortgages. We never had any debt or anything,” she said. “If I didn’t have the money, I didn’t buy it.”
She taught medical technology at Valencia College.
“Between us, we weren’t making $25,000 a year. But our strategy was we would save all of my income, 10% of his and we’d live on the rest of his,” she said.
They kept that outlook after she moved into a sales job for a medical supply company, working on a commission but excelling at it. Then they dabbled in real estate before eventually going into corporate consulting, a gig she maintained for 35 years and included travel to Asia and India, she said.
“My real career was traveling the world as a corporate consultant. I help companies and executive teams kind of get their arms around their goals and help them grow the company where they want to grow,” she said.
Layton is a native of Utica, New York. She has degrees from the University of Tennessee and Florida Southern College in Lakeland. Her doctorate in business was earned from Nova Southeastern University. Her husband died in 2022.
She’s in her seventh year as a member of the board of trustees at the science center. Her connection began with Robert Finfrock, a name that appears on the museum’s terrace. They were both on Junior Achievement’s board.
“One day he commented that, ‘You know, we could really use a strategist on the science center board,’ and the rest is history,” she said.
Layton started a donor-advised fund to stockpile money “so that I could do something big,” she said. She landed on the multimillion-dollar donation earmarked for “Life.”
“It was a big – really big – deal for us,” said JoAnn Newman, president and CEO of Orlando Science Center.
“She was donating to all kinds of groups, but not of that magnitude, but still getting involved and contributing,” Newman said. “Then she started thinking about her legacy and doing something that she felt would have a bigger impact.”
Being involved with the board boosted Layton’s comfort level.
“I’m on the finance committee, I know where the money goes. And I would not have made the investment I made had I not thought it would be well-managed and well-used,” she said.
“In some ways, ‘Life’ was made for her,” Newman said. “We already had it, of course, in the works, but it was such a great fit for things she loved.”
The science center’s “Life” exhibit is organized by three ecosystems: ocean, swamp and rainforest. It is inhabited by a range of animals, including a sloth, free-flying birds, monkeys, owls and sealife. The tortoises who previously lived in the “NatureWorks” exhibit are back beneath the tall cypress trees – with a bigger beach setting – at the center of the museum.
The new “Life” is the most expensive installation in the institution’s history at $13.5 million. Orange County tourist-tax revenue makes up $10 million of the expenditure.
Layton recalls a lifetime attachment with animals, including her childhood in Miami.
“I was always bringing snails and bugs and snakes and everything home to my mother, who, god bless her, was always a good sport,” she said.
As an adult, she upsized her animal interests with shark diving, she said.
“I was bored in Fiji. And I think ‘You guys have any big animals around here? I don’t want to see these little bitty tiny clownfish,”’ she said. “They said ‘You want to shark dive?’ And I said ‘You bet.’”
Her involvement with Orlando Science Center has sparked curiosity about similar institutions, she said. She has checked out science centers in locations from Baltimore to Berlin.
“The more I see other science centers, the more impressed I am with this place because it’s really classy and it’s updated,” she said of the Loch Haven Park museum.
“It’s not a bare-bones warehouse. … That’s what so many of them are. They’re just concrete buildings with stands set up with little exhibits and everything,” Layton said.
“This is like a beautiful, expensive house. It’s like a really classy house.”
She also likes the effect the museum has on visitors.
“There’s hardly a time when I’m walking through the tunnel that I’m not seeing some kids screaming, crying on the way out, ‘I just don’t want to leave,’” she said. “They have so much fun.”
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