NMHS:
A CAUSE IN MOTION President’s Farewell
Thanks A Million—And that Doesn’t Begin to Cover it
photo by bob rozycki, courtesy wag magazine
It seems like yesterday that Norma Stanford hired me as the Society’s public relations and marketing director to oversee the grand opening of the China Pier Park, a waterfront park that had been a dump just months earlier, and to organize a celebration that would bring historic ships to visit Peekskill, New York, home to NMHS headquarters. It was in reality July 1995. What a challenge; in those first weeks we had lines of people at my desk and dozens more inquiring by phone as we organized the event, got the park and dock in shape, put out publicity, directed the historic ships, and secured vendors. It was at times overwhelming but always gratifying. For me, it was not a one-off, but instead the first of hundreds of events I would be involved in through NMHS to engage the public in recognizing the importance of our maritime heritage. I had previously left a good job as managing editor of Creative Computing magazine, bringing its readership from 2,000 to 200,000 in a few years, but took some time off to raise my children. At the time Norma interviewed me, I was the vice president of the NYS American Association of University Women, and I think she hired me because she liked the feature I wrote for our publication, “Membership Begins with Me.” Now I like to say “Membership begins with me and ends with a ship.” I have been on this Burchie Green outside the former NMHS headquarters voyage with you for 27 years. I love this job. I love the people I work with, along the Hudson River in Peekskill, New York. the challenges we undertake, and the importance of the mission. Representing NMHS has sent me across the country and on voyages and to meetings around the world. I have had the opportunity to hear hundreds of lectures, read hundreds of maritime-themed books, and meet and work with the brightest, most interesting, talented, kindest, and funniest people in the world. Our mission afforded me varied and exciting opportunities as we put the mission of the Society forward, always looking for ways to promote and preserve America’s maritime heritage. In 2022, NMHS is in the best shape ever, thanks to our members and leadership, and I am excited that one of our own vice presidents, Jessica MacFarlane, has been selected by our trustees to take the helm of the Society. Having worked with her for the past eight years, I am confident she will bring fresh perspective and energy to the job, as NMHS approaches its sixth decade of operations. Oh, the places we’ve seen and the projects we’ve done. My most noteworthy success, perhaps, is the people I’ve hired at NMHS. We run a big operation with a small staff, and each person who has worked for the Society over the years has made valuable contributions to how the organization is run, events are planned and carried out, and in the production of our flagship publication, Sea History. Check out Sea History’s masthead, and you will see the names of our trustees, staff, and advisors. It begins with the incomparable Peter Aron, and then lists those of many talents. I am deeply indebted to them all. Through my role with NMHS, I have been privileged to work on a wide variety of projects and collaborations to promote our mission and our maritime heritage. Under the direction of our late chairman emeritus, Howard Slotnick, we brought the only parade of tall ships up the Hudson River in the 20th century. I have served on the National Advisory Board for the Commemoration of the Bicentennial of the War of 1812 and the Star Spangled Banner, on the steering committee for the National Maritime Alliance’s Maritime Heritage Conferences, on the advisory committee of the American Caribbean Maritime Foundation, and most recently I joined the board of the Center for American Marine Art and Sail250 New York, celebrating America’s 250th birthday in New York Harbor on July 4th, 2026. There is so much we have been able to accomplish in this time that it is impossible to include it all. Still, here are a few examples. • In an era where many print magazines struggle to compete with so many other types of media, Sea History is flourishing.
courtesy burchenal green
• With funding from a National Maritime Heritage Grant, we redesigned our website, which included digitizing and posting online all fifty years of Sea History magazine. The resources you will find at www.seahistory.org are excellent, and in recent years the website gets more than 120,000 online visitors annually. • We work with some 26 states across the country to award cash prizes to students of National History Day whose projects focus on maritime history, encouraging the next generation of scholars. Burchie with NMHS VPs Wendy Paggiotta and Deirdre O’Regan, aboard the schooner Adirondack II in Newport, Rhode Island, as part of the 2016 NMHS Annual Meeting. 8
SEA HISTORY 180, AUTUMN 2022