During his years at Carleton, Jack already knew he was headed for a museum career. Before graduating in 1986 he interned at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and at Franklin Furnace in New York. After graduation he began studying American art at the University of Delaware, earning a Ph.D. in 2002, and eventually an MBA from the University of Michigan. Along the way he worked as an assistant at various other museums, including the National Gallery in Washington, and eventually received the appointment of Curator at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme CT. That led to the Directorship of the Cheekwood Museum of Art in Nashville, TN in 2002. In 2010, Dr. Jack Becker moved to the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha from Cheekwood.