Surge, pilings, patience, and community

Greetings!

For those that have been onboard the past couple of weeks, you may have experienced the craziness of the tidal surge, new pilings, and constant tour changes. Thank you for your patience!

Credits: Ken Ken LaBruzzi

The Port of Los Angeles did an incredible job with the installation of the pilings. This will help tremendously in providing us a secure mooring location. The operations team was hard at work on the necessary repairs to the gangway and adjusting mooring lines following the intense surge this past Monday. This was above and beyond their normal duties. Good job team!

Due to the pile driving and gangway repairs, the tour team and our guests were flexible in the rerouting of the normal tour route. There were almost daily changes on the tour route, but it was performed quite well. This coupled with hundreds of school kids showed the flexibility of the crew, especially the tour team. We appreciate the patience and dedication of all crew involved.

Credit: Ross H. Tipps

On Friday we played host to the French Legion ceremony in honor of the Victory in Europe during WWII. This was a well-attended ceremony and received positive nationwide media coverage. This is another great example of how we can provide a community platform for partner events.

Part of being a community asset includes working with our partners to help expand the reach of the LA Waterfront as a destination. This past week we hosted the second session teaching our partners on how to use Google AdWords to grow their business and reach. It was attended by approximately 10 community leaders and we are blessed to be able to help them grow their organizations.

We are in full swing planning the HNSA conference scheduled in September of 2015. Currently we are in the process of requesting submittals for presentations and are planning to include numerous experts. Included within the conference will be receptions, a boat tour, and a banquet on the IOWA. For IOWA crew interested in participating and volunteering, we will be able to provide special admission. Please stay tuned for more details. Current conference details can be found at:  http://www.pacificbattleship.com/page/hnsa

On the fundraising front, we received a grant from the Confidence Foundation for our accessibility project. This grant was through an introduction from our newest board member, Arlo Sorensen. This project will allows us to provide better access to our guests with physical challenges. We still have a long way to go to raise the necessary funds, but we are moving in a positive direction.

Our current priorities for fundraising include Accessibility, Education, and Power. We have recently submitted a grant to go towards the power installation and have two additional grants due this month. Josh Stutz and Jerry Salazar (LAUSD) are hard at work preparing the necessary paperwork for grants towards the Day of Discovery. This program is very popular within the local school district and our goal is to expand it to reach additional at-risk students.

Credit: Todd James!

You may have noticed the number of special events we are hosting on board. The events team consisting of Todd Caleca and VJ Alcomindras are hard at work booking space onboard the ship. When they are not performing walk-throughs or preparing quotes, they are producing our internal events (which are numerous). They are always looking for volunteers that are interested in assisting with events, so please feel free to reach out to Sue or Todd to offer your assistance.

Memorial Day is coming up in a couple of weeks. I encourage everyone to join us in this special annual event. We will even have a special question & answer session with Bernie Kopell (USS Iowa Veteran and Love Boat Doctor.) It will be a special event and we look forward to your involvement.

Group sales are in the last minute push for the yearend field trip tours. As expected, we are receiving numerous calls to book student field trips. Thank you to the entire crew for your involvement and patience with the student groups.

In closing, thank you to the unsung heroes of the Battleship IOWA crew. Every department has the quiet heroes that keep the organization running. We couldn’t operate without every person’s involvement and for that- we are forever appreciative.