Fun in the sun, a ships stroll, and Easter!

Hello crew and supporters!

Over the past couple of weeks, we have had a lot of warm weather and good attendance. We are headed into spring break with a strong momentum!

Photo Credit: Ross H. Tipps

As some of you know, we have worked with the Port of Los Angeles on a parking resolution. While it is not perfect, it will still be a positive thing for us. We appreciate everyone’s patience as we roll out this program.

Part of the parking program includes a new security shack that you may see being built in the northern yard. John (a local carpenter) was kind enough to come in and help build the shack. He has done a great job and I am hoping we can recruit him to stick around as part of the wood deck crew.

Speaking of wood, Stan Sato was honored this past crew meeting as the volunteer of the quarter. This award is well deserved for Stan and we are proud to have him as our first winner. The recipient is selected by a jury of peers and I personally did not know it was him until an hour before the meeting was to start. I want to thank everyone that participated in the process and we look forward to honoring future recipients!

Photo Credit: Ross H. Tipps

I have been strolling the ship these past couple of days and have had the opportunity to pop into areas that I haven’t seen in a while. The veteran’s exhibit is coming along nicely with the beautiful paint job in the space. The Bobby Scott cabin is fully decorated and ready to open soon! The wardroom movie is almost live and the wardroom itself is cleaned up! The wood decks aft are being working on with the steel being cleaned up the last week. There is a lot of excitement at the ship and the crew is hard at work to provide a great visitor experience. Thank you to all of the crew for the focus on completing these exciting projects!

Last week, I was at the HNSA board meeting where we met on numerous things including the future conference in September. We are excited to play host to our fellow ships and are looking forward to an educational and enjoyable conference. The IOWA crew is already working on creating one of our stellar events.

On Thursday, March 27th, we hosted our LA Waterfront partners for a meeting in the wardroom. This coalition has come together and created a collaboration that will help move the waterfront forward. As a member of this group, we have helped develop the waterfront passport and provided work together for future programs and products. We also heard that our neighbor LA Maritime Museum has a real neat exhibit coming up soon! It is our hope to have a small role in publicizing it.

On the fundraising front, we are working on a few key areas of interest this year. They are interactive education, accessibility, power, aviation, hull maintenance, and continued deck replacement. We have some strong early interest and we are hoping to grow our organization locally and nationally with our programs.

Memorial Day is shaping up to be an exciting event with our partners at KRLA. We will have Bernie Kopell coming to the IOWA to do a Q&A along with our Memorial Day ceremonies. This will be a fun event to put on your calendars.

Photo Credit: Ross H. Tipps

Speaking of events, don’t forget to join us for Easter Brunch in April. The Easter Bunny will show up and the brunch will be invigorating. Hope to see you there.

Thank you again to all of our supporters and crew members for staying passionately involved!

Chinese tour brochure?

This week's blog post is written as I am on a plane to the annual HNSA board meeting in Annapolis, MD.  It has been a busy couple of weeks for the entire crew with tasks ranging from education to fundraising.

I will start out this blog post with a special congratulations to Tim Getscher for being appointed to the US Naval Academy.  From my understanding he will be headed back to Annapolis this summer to start his career in the US Navy.

Milton from Puppy Jake Foundation
joining us for our meetings in Iowa.

Last week, the Board of Directors met and discussed future objectives in Des Moines, IA.  I personally feel that it was one of the best board meetings we have had to date.  The board focused on ways to achieve our strategic objectives and help grow our organization.  Mike Getscher and David Canfield knocked it out of the park with there presentations on where we are headed.  Thank you to Ross and Nui for presenting the budget for approval at this board meeting.  From a fundraising angle, we are focused on raising over $17 million that goes towards a variety of items including power, decks, accessibility, hull preservation, and museum.  As part of the discussion, the board complemented the entire crew on the tremendous job over the past couple of years. Following this meeting, the board members present visited State of Iowa leadership to discuss these objectives.  We have quickly earned a reputation of delivering on what we promise.  This is one of our core values that we strive to obtain daily.We heard numerous times how proud they are of what we have accomplished.

Tobias at Vessel Design Group has developed an information booklet that provides the background and high level view of the organization.  This is a great booklet that we leave with donors, donor prospects, and ambassadors.

Inside cover of booklet prepared by Tobias at Vessel Design Group

The Victory Field Trip book has arrived and tour is preparing to participate in excellent school visits.  This book has received rave reviews by educators and public officials as a field trip guide.  An advance thank you to the tour crew for embracing this new program for our guests.  This is a tremendous addition to our cadre of products and a large step forward in the development of our education department.

Chinese Tour Map
Vessel Design Group

The tour map has been translated into Chinese and Spanish!  They are also in the process of being printed and we will see them at the ship very soon.  This is a long awaited addition to the tour and we thank everyone for their patience.

Speaking of tour additions, the ops team is always hard at work in restoring the ship to the 1980's configuration.  Have you seen 03 level?  Wow!  Special thank you to Donna Martino, Mary Ma, Stan Sato, and others that I am certain I have missed.  I personally have noticed the dress ship painting and stenciling throughout.  Thank you team for restoring the ship and thank you for taking care of the daily functions that go un-noticed, but are extremely important to the organization!

03 Level.  Picture by Stan Sato

Our events department is currently in transition with the recent departure of Jamie Perez.  Jamie started her new job this week and we are proud of her for what she has accomplished in such a short period of time.  Todd Caleca has agreed to take on the job of Special Events and Photo Manager.  Todd and Jamie worked together over the past couple of months and I feel the events department is in good hands with Todd.  In the next week, we will have a new hire to fill the role of Special Events Coordinator.  This person will help facilitate scheduling, event setup,and critical functions to allow Todd to grow the revenue of Special Events.  Todd is actively looking for folks to help setup and tear down events.  Please volunteer to help, as this is a critical function to help return the ship to daily visitation.

Photo by Ross Tipps

You were able to see some Todd's handiwork, along with the dedication of the weekend crew on Sunday, March 1st.  We hosted the centennial celebration of the US Navy Reserve and had a Vice Admiral, Rear Admiral, Mayor, and LAFD on board.  A special thank you to the crew that helped with this event and NOSC LA for choosing us for the event.  As a special not, NOSC LA included the IOWA in the newest edition of their logo.

We were recently able to come up with a parking resolution that the Port of Los Angeles and PCI agreed to.  Basically, crew will be able to utilize parking at no cost through this new program.  We do expect there will be a few glitches and possibly a couple of days where we run out of passes.  Please stay tuned as the program is due to role out in April.  A special thank you to security in advance for helping facilitate this process and thank you to the entire crew for your patience.

As a side note to parking, I encourage everyone to give a special thank you to Nui in accounting.  She is the only daily staff member in accounting that works to keep us on track and has diligently renewed the top 10 volunteer cards monthly.  Please thank her when you have a chance!

A reminder that CAMM is coming to San Pedro in April.  The LA Maritime Museum is the host organization and we encourage you to attend if you are interested.  It should be a fun time!

We will be host to the USS Tennessee reunion in June, followed by the USS Iowa reunion in August, and the HNSA conference in September.  We look forward to playing host to all of this great events.

In closing, I want to thank each and every one of our crew members.  I especially want to thank the volunteers that have assumed a leadership role in helping move the organization forward.  Each and every one of you are the foundation of the organization and the heart of Battleship IOWA today.  Your names are too numerous to list, but I will strive to thank you in person when I return to the ship.

Updates 3/3/2015

The past couple of weeks have been very eventful. Thank you, to all crew members that have volunteered and put in the tremendous effort required to pull together such a gargantuan effort.  Our core of volunteers has been instrumental in making things happen.

We are forever grateful!

(Credit: Ross Tipps)

Recently we have been informed of an increase in parking rates at the Port of Los Angeles Berth 87 parking lot. We understand the frustration and inconvenience this provides for all of our volunteers. Some of the early feedback is related to Pacific Battleship Center paying parking for all volunteers. If we had the budget to do so, we would be more than thrilled to provide this to our volunteers. Unfortunately, and to be quite frank, we do not have the budget to pay for parking at this time. At the moment, our number of paid staff necessary to operate the organization is approximately 15% under the minimum requirement. Our start-up debt continues to be a large and expensive matter. The uncertainty of fuel prices and future energy issues remains to be a concern. Given circumstances, our only options out are to balance a budget. We must reduce expenses and increase revenue. We have cut expenses as much as possible and are focused on maximizing our revenue through overnight, youth programs, events, and admissions. It will take an entire summer in order to make up for our off-season to balance the annual budget. When calculating the expense of parking, we are estimating $10k to $12k per month. Still, we will continue to explore solutions and opportunities to reduce the parking burden and hope to have answers soon.

The parking was increased at the cruise terminal and Catalina Express. It is not an isolated increase to only the IOWA. The adjustment was enacted to bring the cruise terminal and Catalina Express in line with other regional airports and cruise terminals. Although it would be simple for us to feel attacked, that is simply not true. We have a very good promotion and marketing relationship with the Port of Los Angeles evidenced by the recent major press conference held on our decks announcing the end of the PMA and ILWU negotiation. In addition to this press conference, we have worked together on joint advertising, built relationships with LATCB, and continue to communicate daily on ways to create a vibrant waterfront.

As a vibrant waterfront, we plan to see an increase in attendance and revenue through the future. Recently, our attendance and revenue have been trending up and getting us closer to being in the black during the off season. Summer is our highest revenue generating season. We are seeing an uptick in group sales, events, and overnight bookings that our sales team has been focused on.

Our new youth tour program is growing, primarily due to the new Victory STEAM field trip program launching on April 1st. Events sales are up due to follow-up, heads, and word of mouth spreading. Thank the sales team when you have a chance for a job well done.

The Camp Battleship team continues to do a great job in providing a positive experience to our overnight youth visitors. Kudos to the entire overnight team for turning this into a great program!

Thank you to the entire crew for pulling off our great public events programming. The help from all departments has made these exciting, interesting, and engaging. Thank you to those crew members that go above and beyond and take on job tasks outside their normal scope of work.

This shows your commitment to a strong team. With that being said, we will be saying farewell to Jamie Perez. Jamie has been a tremendous asset in strengthening the events venue and placing the critical building blocks to carry forward. She will be missed, but she is moving on to a great career opportunity. We will see Todd Caleca stepping more into this role and we look forward to his involvement in the events department.

(Click for details)

Coming up in March we have Music Under the Guns and Movies Under the Guns. These two series are becoming popular and help strengthen our role as a community asset. Todd Caleca and Jamie Perez have been critical in the execution of these events and we thank there focus and attention to providing great programs.

Our AQMD abatement order has been modified and extended to permit us to continue operating until March 1st, 2016. Thank you to our volunteer attorney and consultant with Mike Getscher taking the lead in keeping this situation at bay. Our power situation and lease amendment associated has once again changed. The lease amendment was modified to include requirements that we could not accept as they would expose us to a multi-million dollar liability. We are now proceeding with the design of a temporary power solution based on the original design created by the Port of Los Angeles. Our goal will be to transition onto temporary shore power within 12 months.  Once we have the design, we will begin procuring donations and in-kind materials to cover the install. Thank you to the ECA for their early committment towards trenching for the project.

As you may know, ship operations are rotating into more of a maintenance type of organization. As we proceed forward, our priorities are shifting to maintain the ship to prevent future major maintenance issues. We appreciate everyone's support as we transition and thank you to our loyal crew members for maintaining the ship! With the recent reorganization, we have hired Mary Ma to be our painting guru. Mary has been a long-term volunteer and critical to the maintenance and improvement of the battleship and a welcome addition to the team.

(Click for more info on Education Program)

Our education department will be introducing a new program - Victory STEAM Field Trip program - on April 1st. The guide is being printed as we speak and should be available shortly.  Thank you to HCBF and the volunteer help we received in putting this together.

Recently, a few of us attended the California Association of Museums conference, which was beneficial in establishing relationships and validating our future direction. Thank you to Associated Foundations for sponsoring the fees related to the conference. While we were at the conference, a group of us were able to attend the new Battle of Midway video on the USS Midway. It is a great combination of holograms and human story that includes some of the technology and story components we have discussed. I encourage everyone to go to the MIDWAY to watch this movie.

(Click for Documentary)

Speaking of movies, we will be introducing a new arrival video in the wardroom. Kert VanderMuelen of Digital Park put together this great piece that introduces our guests to the ship. A big thank you to Kert for continuing to volunteer and to devote so much effort to our project. Stay tuned as I hear he is working on something else. (BTW: he is also the documentary producer of our film sold in the store.)

As the population of the tour space continues, we see major improvements throughout the ship including the painting on 03 level by Mary Ma and Linda Ayers. Stan Sato and Derek Cross pulled another genie out of the bottle with the recent locating of a dentist chair. Stan continued his amazing work as Dr. Wood on the aft quarterdeck and we thank all of the donors and volunteers that have contributed to this refurbishment project. A special thank you to the security team for taking on some of the chipping duties when the help was needed. This is teamwork!

For me personally, the next couple of weeks will be busy with trips to Des Moines, IA and Annapolis, MD. I will be working with our Board of Directors while in Des Moines on fundraising strategies, future planning, and critical meetings to the future of our organization.  Following Des Moines, I will be headed to Annapolis, MD for the annual HNSA board meeting. While at the HNSA board meeting, we will be discussing the upcoming conference in San Pedro and areas critical to the future of museum ships.

We will be introducing the LA Waterfront passport program on or about April 1st.  The brochures and passports have been printed (courtesy of the Port of Los Angeles) and are currently onsite. We will be working with our community partners to acquire the redemption stamps and prepare signage for the execution of the program. Thank you to the Friends of the LA Maritime Museum, Barry Herlihy, Loren Roberts, and the Port of Los Angeles for the perseverance and focus to bring this project to fruition after over a year of planning.

I personally appreciate the contributions of each and every one of you. See you on deck!


-Jonathan Williams