• We received a grant to catalog our 8,000-volume library so that now, partnering with the Westchester Library System and Hendrick Hudson Free Library, we are deep into the project. It is an honor to have named the library for our chairman emeritus Ronald L. Oswald, whose leadership and friendship have long been invaluable to me and to the Society. • Sea History Today, a bi-monthly digital feature produced by NMHS Senior Staff Writer Shelley Reid, is a treasure of eclectic information.
courtesy burchenal green
• Our awards events, held each autumn and spring, recognize significant achievements and contributions to the maritime heritage field and inspire others to pursue the mission. In addition to the important role these gala events serve, I have to admit that we have such fun gathering together to present the awards.
Deputy Grand Parade Marshal Burchie Green boarding the US Coast Guard Barque Eagle, the lead vessel in the 1998 parade of ships up the Hudson River.
photo by allison lucas
• In 2023, Sails Over Ice and Seas, the major documentary about the 1894 schooner Ernestina-Morrissey that we are producing with NMHS Vice Chairman and film producer Rick Lopes, with funding from the H. F. Lenfest Fund at Vanguard Charitable, should be ready for distribution. • It has been rewarding to work with the National Maritime Alliance to organize the national Maritime Heritage Conferences in Baltimore, Norfolk, and New Orleans, to bring the broad spectrum of maritime heritage organizations together. • We are a partner with Sail250 New York in the long tradition of providing an educational component to tall ship events. The Society helped organize Operation Sail ’76 in New York City, and has worked for each major ship event since.
NMHS leadership hamming it up at the 2018 Annual Awards Dinner: (l–r) NMHS trustee Timothy J. Runyan, Burchenal Green, NMHS Chairman Emeritus Howard Slotnick, and Sea History editor Deirdre O’Regan. • We are proud to partner with other maritime organizations and, through these relationships, develop greater strength and resources for the maritime heritage community to preserve ships, share scholarship, and promote the work of maritime museums and traditional shipbuilders and riggers. • You cannot do the work that needs to be done without funds—with the help of special philanthropists, supporters, and friends, the Society is now stronger financially than it has ever been before. It has not always been easy, but we do not live in easy times. I have written too many obituaries, and A Note from NMHS Trustees and Staff had too many nights when I lock the office door in the While Burchenal Green has made great efforts to recognize and bring wee hours of the morning or stressful moments when attention to the achievements of many individuals and organizations in we did not know where the support would come from the maritime heritage community, her work has not gone unnoticed. In that we need to keep going. But there have been more 2018, she was honored with the National Maritime Heritage Conference times when I have climbed aboard a schooner, ferryboat, Award of Distinction for the Society’s work in bringing together organipaddle-wheeler, ocean liner, brig, Navy or Coast Guard zations from across the country that work to preserve and promote our vessel, the hawsers are cast off, and we pull away from maritime heritage. In 2020, she was presented with the American Society the dock as a seagoing adventure gets underway. As I of Marine Artists Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Independence look around me, I am surrounded by those whom I Seaport Museum Award for Maritime Preservation. have learned to call my shipmates, and isn’t it good. Fair Winds Burchie! —Burchenal Green, NMHS President Emeritus SEA HISTORY 180, AUTUMN 2022
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