Family:

I hope your summer is off to a great start and that you are enjoying the loosened health protocols throughout the nation.  Our programs continue to gain participation with education booking overnights and summer camps, veterans preparing to open the Veterans Resource Center, and disaster preparedness training frequency increasing in support of our community pillar.  Our attendance continues to slowly rebound with the weekends experiencing the best participation throughout the week and several visitors going behind the scenes with one of our special add-on tours.

The small but agile crew is motivated to see their organization rebound out of the pandemic and has been hard at work on Vicky’s Doghouse, the Veterans Resource Center, LA Fleet Week, a new power and IT run, providing special tours, hosting hundreds of youth on board, supporting veterans with peer programs, events and overnight bookings, and the numerous support functions needed to keep things moving.  There are many unsung heroes at the museum that keep us ticking daily and my deepest appreciation for their steadfast work.  Quite simply the ship is a flurry of activity and the crew is doing a phenomenal job staying on top of it.  The best part of being busy is seeing the ship alive!

Concurrently with the flurry of activity, our development team is running the Veterans Resource Center campaign, planning Freedom of the Seas in October, overseeing the Plank Owner campaign, and ramping up our capital campaign meetings and proposals.  We are ahead in our campaign to open the National Museum of the Surface Navy at the Battleship IOWA in 2025.  Our crew created the proof of concept for this museum with the Lost at Sea exhibit and is running infrastructure to support the growth while planning additional modifications for late this year.  To date, several donors have committed to naming opportunities to recognize a loved one’s service in addition to proposals under review for corporate sponsorship level participation.  We appreciate the support from major supporters with a deep appreciation for every person that supports the Surface Navy Museum including becoming a Plank Owner and spreading the message.

In closing, I am most proud of what we have done together as a community of supporters over the past several years.  We have not only built a top 5 Los Angeles museum, but we have become much more than “just another museum”.  With your support, our vision of being an impactful community platform has come to fruition with a focus on three pillars – education, community, and veterans.  Your support and contributions have impacted thousands of lives and made an enormous difference to our nation’s future.  Our next evolution will be even more impactful, as we expand our three pillars of programs across the nation to ensure that our Surface Navy heroes and legacy live on.

Have a blessed week and thank you for your support.

Jonathan Williams
President and CEO