Saturday, March 14, 2015

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.

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