Mystic Seaport Museum will be hosting artist Patrick O’Brien for a 2-week residency in the Burrows House. Patrick, who resides in Baltimore with his wife and son, has been painting maritime scenes since the 1980s when he graduated from college. He recalls being a child and sitting at the dining room table painting old historic scenes, civil war paintings, and Viking scenes. Today he feels lucky to be making a living doing exactly the same thing.
“What I like best about being in Mystic and at the Museum is just the atmosphere. It’s so picturesque and directly outside my front door is the whaleship Charles W. Morgan, so it couldn’t possibly be a better spot for painting my old ships.”
While here, Patrick hopes to finalize two paintings he began previously, one of a British warship and one of a battle with USS Constitution. When visitors arrive at the Burrows House, they will be able to see a handful of completed paintings, as well as watch him work on his latest projects.
Patrick will be at the Museum from June 20 – July 2. Stop by and say hello!
Patrick’s art is distributed nationally. Learn more about him and see more of his work online at www.patrickobrienstudio.com.
Mystic Seaport Museum will present its 2021 America and the Sea Award to Terry Hutchinson, one of the most admired and respected sailors in the yacht racing circuit and most recently the skipper, executive director, and tactician for the New York Yacht Club American Magic campaign for the 36th America’s Cup.
The prestigious award recognizes those individuals and organizations whose extraordinary achievements in the world of maritime exploration, competition, scholarship, and design best exemplify the American character.
Hutchinson will be honored for his storied record as an outstanding yachtsman, his multiple world championship wins, his courageous America’s Cup campaigns, but most especially for the leadership, integrity, courage and humility he has demonstrated as the leader of the American Magic campaign. Hutchinson exemplifies the very pinnacle of competitive sailing, both in victory, and in defeat.
“What truly sets Hutchinson apart is his leadership. He held his team together to compete in the America’s Cup, battling COVID-19 restrictions and numerous changes in fortune, including a severely damaged boat. Hutchinson led his team with the humble charisma that has defined his entire sailing career, indicative of the American spirit that the America and the SeaAward seeks to honor,” said Mystic Seaport Museum President Peter Armstrong.
“I am incredibly humbled by this honor,” Hutchinson remarked upon receiving the invitation to accept the 2021 award. “Tom Whidden, the 2020 award recipient, has been a great mentor, friend, and leader in our sport. To follow in his footsteps and that of the other great recipients is an absolute honor.”
Hutchinson’s reputation as an outstanding sailor and teammate began with his college sailing career at Old Dominion University, where he helped lead the team to four national championships, and continued through 16 World Championship wins, and 5 America’s Cup campaigns. Hutchinson was named the Rolex Yachtsman of the Year twice, which is a testament to the respect and admiration the sailing community has for him.
Mystic Seaport Museum will recognize Hutchinson’s exceptional career by awarding him the America and the Sea Award on Tuesday, September 14, 2021. The award presentation will take place at the Metropolitan Club in New York City.
This affair is the premier fundraising event for Mystic Seaport Museum. Past recipients of the America and the Sea Award include America’s Cup Hall of Famer Tom Whidden, one of the most acclaimed sailors of all time; American businesswoman and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, whose ocean explorations have advanced our understanding of the ocean’s biodiversity and vulnerability; groundbreaking Whitbread and America’s Cup sailor Dawn Riley and Oakcliff Sailing; philanthropist and environmentalist David Rockefeller, Jr., and his Sailors for the Sea; boat designers Rod and Bob Johnstone and their company J/Boats; author and historian Nathaniel Philbrick; maritime industrialist and NYYC Commodore Charles A. Robertson; Hall of Famer sailor and author Gary Jobson; WoodenBoat Publications founder Jon Wilson; former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman; oceanographer and explorer Sylvia Earle; America’s Cup sailor William Koch; President and CEO of Crowley Maritime Corporation, Thomas Crowley; historian David McCullough; and the first honoree, legendary yacht designer Olin J. Stephens, II.
The Museum is celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the launch of the L.A. Dunton, one of the few remaining vessels of her type in the country. Sailing schooners fished the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and Georges Bank outside of Cape Cod. They were some of the fastest and ablest fishing vessels in the world.
Designed by Thomas F. McManus, the L.A. Dunton was built by Arthur D. Story and launched from his well-known yard at Essex, Mass., on March 23, 1921. Built after auxiliary gasoline power had become common in schooners, the Dunton was probably the last large engine-less fishing schooner.
Jim Kilroy aboard Kialoa III in the Miami to Monetgo Bay race 1975, Photo by Dick Enersen.
Jim Kilroy aboard Kialoa III in the Miami to Monetgo Bay race 1975, Photo by Dick Enersen.
Mystic Seaport Museum announces the donation of a significant collection of 20th century yachting materials related to the renowned sailor John B. “Jim” Kilroy Sr. and his yachts named Kialoa. This donation was made by Kilroy’s daughter Patrice Kilroy, who wished that the story of her father and those who sailed with him would be preserved and shared with future generations.
The materials contained in the collection include personal correspondence, design memoranda, drawings, ratings protocols, race notes, planning items, logbooks, annotated charts, photos, scrapbook clippings, movies, plaques, trophies and other materials which document 50 years of American yachting at the highest levels of competition.
“Jim Kilroy and the Kialoas were synonymous with big boat sailing during a transformative time in the sport. The best amateur sailors aspired to crew for Kilroy. Many of his crew went on to impact sailing in their own rights. Mystic Seaport Museum is the perfect place to keep the Kilroy-Kialoa Collection safe and accessible for marine historians and generations of sailors to come,” said Sheila McCurdy, Mystic Seaport Museum trustee and past commodore of the Cruising Club of America
From 1956 to 2005, Kilroy owned and raced five Maxi boats carrying the name Kialoa. The racing successes that Kilroy and his amateur crews achieved on every ocean of the world are exceptional. In 1975 alone, they won 11 major ocean races, including the Transatlantic, the Fastnet, and the Sydney-to-Hobart Races. The Hobart win in 1975 set a record time that stood for 21 years despite the advances in materials and technology that transpired during those decades. Kialoa IV won 20 out of 24 races in 1981 and held the Maxi Yacht World Champion title for five years between 1981 and 1987.
This collection is important not simply because it documents the success of the Kialoa campaigns, but because Kilroy and the Kialoa boats were at the forefront of many advances in yacht design, construction, crewing, and technology. An early Kialoa was one of the first racing yachts built of aluminum, and Kialoa IV was an early example of the use of carbon composites and Kevlar, both adopted from the aerospace industry.
Kilroy famously used computers to aid in planning, analyzing and measuring success, and his early adoption of onboard computer data collection and use of computers to assist in tactical decision-making was at the forefront of what has now become the industry standard.
Kilroy was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2014. He passed away in 2016.
Mystic Seaport Museum is excited to begin cataloguing and digitizing this collection so that it can be shared with researchers, scholars, and enthusiasts alike. This is an important acquisition for the Museum as it advances the collection into the modern era of yacht racing.
Brown University, Williams College and Mystic Seaport Museum scholars will use maritime history as a basis for studying the relationship between European colonization, dispossession of Native American land, and racial slavery.
A $4.9 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to Brown University’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice will fund a partnership with Mystic Seaport Museum, and Williams College that will use maritime history as a basis for studying historical injustices and generating new insights on the relationship between European colonization in North America, the dispossession of Native American land, and racial slavery in New England.
The collaborative project, titled “Reimagining New England Histories: Historical Injustice, Sovereignty and Freedom,” will create new work and study opportunities at all three institutions, particularly for scholars, curators, and students from underrepresented groups. It will result in a new Mystic Seaport Museum exhibition on race, subjugation, and power, and a “decolonial archive” spotlighting a diverse collection of stories from several New England communities.
The grant was awarded by the Mellon Foundation as part of its Just Futures Initiative, a by-invitation competition that invited 38 colleges and universities to submit project proposals that would address the “long-existing fault lines” of racism, inequality, and injustice that challenge ideas of democracy and civil society.
“Mystic Seaport Museum is proud to collaborate with our esteemed partners in implementing an institution-wide reframing of the traditional narratives around the American maritime experience as it relates to African, African-American, and Indigenous peoples. As America’s leading maritime museum, we are uniquely positioned to be the venue for a monumental exhibition in 2023, which marks an imperative, transformative, and inclusive reflection on how America’s activities on the world’s oceans have and continue to play a part in our country’s society from the position of race and slavery,” said Christina Connett Brophy, senior director of museum galleries and senior vice president of curatorial affairs. “Working with our partners, and through the fresh lens of ships and the sea, we are excited to engage new audiences in critical conversations that have long remained unfinished.”
The planned exhibition at Mystic Seaport Museum will run from Fall 2023 to Summer 2024 and will juxtapose traditional narratives about early New England with engaging artifacts that tell a different story about the past — from archaeological materials to documents and literature to music and oral histories
“A myth in the founding narrative of the United States is the idea of New England as a ‘city on the hill,’ a place founded on the idea of liberty for all,” said Anthony Bogues, director of Brown’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. “But it is important to consider that this site of America’s founding was also a site of Native dispossession as well as racial slavery. Brown and Williams have told stories about both of those histories, but rarely have we explored the relationship between the two.”
Since its founding in 2012, the CSSJ has explored the history and legacies of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and racial slavery through research, study, public conversations, exhibitions and more. The groundbreaking work of the center’s researchers has catalyzed international scholarly conversations and inspired similar work at colleges and universities across the country.
But Bogues, who will oversee the grant-funded project, said that in recent months, he and his colleagues felt their mission must expand to include the investigation of New England’s role in displacing Native Americans — something he believes is as foundational a part of American history as racial slavery.
To help draw connections between racial slavery and Native American dispossession, Brown reached out to scholars at Williams College in Massachusetts — a growing group of whom focus on Indigenous peoples and racial slavery in early America — and Mystic Seaport Museum, which for more than 40 years has worked with Williams to offer the program Williams-Mystic, a unique liberal arts-focused semester at sea for undergraduates on its museum campus. The Museum also conducts the Frank C. Munson Institute for American Maritime History, a graduate-level program accredited by the University of Connecticut. Together, the three institutions devised a plan for a three-year partnership that will draw on each institution’s strengths to generate new scholarship, student experiences, public events, and more. Some K-12 educational programs will also be developed with support from other sources.
“We chose Williams as a partner because they have some very fine young historians who are thinking critically about Indigenous dispossession,” Bogues said. “The college has made it very clear that they sit on Indigenous land, and they are convening courses and programs that reckon with that. As well, we have wanted to partner with Mystic Seaport Museum on an exhibit that touches on racial slavery and the sea for quite some time. This is an opportunity for our three institutions to come together and think hard about the links between two major historical injustices in our country.”
The project has four major components: a new research cluster at the CSSJ, an online “decolonial archive,” a major exhibition at Mystic Seaport Museum, and expanded courses on historical injustice in early America for students at Williams, Brown, and Mystic Seaport Museum.
The new research cluster, housed at the CSSJ, will focus on how societies founded on historical forms of injustice can become more inclusive and just. Faculty, staff and students from Brown and Williams will collaborate on scholarly projects, sometimes engaging in research work as part of joint Brown-Williams courses.
To create an online “decolonial archive,” the three partners will work with leaders in New England’s Black and Indigenous communities, Brown’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative, the John Carter Brown Library and staff at the John Hay Library to gather oral histories of New Englanders who have experienced the effects of centuries of institutional racism and dispossession. Part of the archive will consist of recorded community conversations organized by Brown and Williams, which will help ensure stories are gathered and shared in ways that reflect community desires, rather than in an exploitative, extractive manner.
The large exhibition at Mystic Seaport Museum will draw upon its vast collections of maritime artifacts as well as those of other lending museums, library, and archival collections. The exhibition will map a more complex historical framework engaging with questions of race and sovereignty, weaving a new narrative with a creative juxtaposition of visual and material culture, archaeology, oral traditions, and songs and performance. The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of interactive interpretive programs – both virtual and in-person at the Museum’s riverside campus – to engage the general public and underserved communities.
Over the next three years, all three partners will also offer a wide variety of learning opportunities for students of all ages. Brown and Williams will develop several cross-disciplinary courses focused on colonialism and historical injustices. Mystic Seaport Museum will develop a new curriculum for its Munson Institute and conduct a summer museum-studies internship for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students with an emphasis on issues of race and inequality in the museum profession.
The research undertaken at the Museum by the exhibition curators, Munson fellows, and summer interns will not only add greatly to the body of knowledge about the African American and Native American facets of the Museum’s permanent collection, but also influence the scope and tenor of future museum collecting by identifying gaps to fill. It will allow the Museum to address critical histories that reflect the history of the region and the sea.
“This is just the beginning of what we hope will become a sustained conversation about the inequities of the nation’s founding,” said Brophy. “It is only by facing the past with an honest and truthful understanding of the forces that shaped the development of our nation that we can hope to become a truly just society.”
Mystic Seaport Museum will be open all winter with a robust offering of indoor exhibits, family and children educational activities, as well as virtual programming. If you haven’t visited Mystic Seaport Museum during winter, we hope you take the opportunity to do so this year and participate in our cold-weather activities!
The core of our winter experience are the indoor exhibits, exhibitions, and activities. All of our galleries are open to visitors with some new offerings that opened in the latter part of 2020.
Figureheads & Shipcarvings is a new exhibit in the Wendell Building. This is a reimagination and new installation of part of our ship figureheads collection that presents the artifacts in a new light — literally and figuratively — with an emphasis on the purpose and artistry of figureheads set in the context of 19th-century wood carving.
Sailor Made: Folk Art of the Sea is an exhibition that opened last fall in the C.D. Mallory Building. Featuring more than 200 artifacts from our collections, the exhibition explores the art that emerged from the world of the working sailor, reflecting their connections to shipboard life, their thoughts about culture on shore, and the souvenirs they created to remember and share the experiences of their travels.
A Way with Wood: Celebrating Craft is open in the Thompson Building’s Collins Gallery. The show introduces visitors to the many ways people transform one of nature’s most malleable materials to objects of utility, art, and beauty. At its center, shipwrights are restoring Museum watercraft in a constant live demonstration.
Mary Mattingly’s Open Ocean is the work of one of Brooklyn’s leading contemporary artists, Mary Mattingly. For several months, Mattingly immersed herself in the Museum’s collections vault, poring over artworks, opening drawer after drawer of artifacts, in search of “evidence of how the sea has always challenged the rigidity of modern, terrestrial life; how its very nature permits a different tenor of creativity.” This exhibition shows what she found.
Voyaging in the Wake of the Whalers in the Stillman Building is a comprehensive exploration of America’s historic and contemporary relationship with whales and whaling.
View the remarkable beauty and craftsmanship of the cabin from the 244-foot square-rigged sailing ship Benjamin F. Packard.
The Treworgy Planetarium will be offering two shows daily: “Winter Stars and the Mariner” and “Polar Night, Artic Light.” In addition, a “full-dome” movie will be projected on the Planetarium’s domed ceiling on weekends. Planetarium programs are free with admission.
The Greenmanville Meeting House will show two movies: the Irving Johnson classic “Around Cape Horn” and “Unfurling the Wind.”
The Home Port children’s activity center reopens for 2021. Set in a warm and inviting room that harkens back to the Victorian Era, Home Port invites families and children to come and spend quality time together with a variety of activities and arts and crafts. Home Port is limited to two families at a time, so please ask for tickets at the entrance gate.
For a look at 19th-century domestic life and open-hearth cooking, stop by the Buckingham-Hall house.
But not everything is indoors this winter. We also have exciting outdoor activities as well. The children’s playscape is open for the kids to work off some energy and the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan is open to board and learn about life at sea on a 19th-century whaler.
Please check our calendar for our schedule of events. New this year are guided shipyard tours on select days and our Membership Department has a full schedule of exclusive member programs.
If you can’t make it to the Museum, don’t worry. We have an expanded offering of virtual programs this Winter to bring the Museum to you. Please visit our new Virtual Programs page to see the full schedule.
The Museum is open to the public 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Thursday-Sunday. Visitors are required to wear a mask and practice social distancing. For a complete list of our COVID-19 policies, please visit our COVID-19 page.
We look forward to seeing you this winter! And don’t forget to stop by Social, our new coffee shop, on your way in and enjoy a hot beverage to warm you up.
If you have been watching the night sky over the course of the autumn and early winter, you may have noticed a pair of bright dots in the southwestern sky. Appearing brighter than all of the stars overhead, these are the two largest planets in our solar system: Jupiter and Saturn. Over the past weeks, the gap between these two bodies has been shrinking, and next week the night sky will display a rare event that has not been seen in nearly 400 years. On Monday, December 21, there will be a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, meaning that from our viewpoint on Earth, the two bright dots will appear to merge into one extremely large object. Conjunctions can happen between any two planets, or possibly between a planet and a bright star. However, when the event involves the two biggest planets in our solar system it is called a “Great Conjunction.”
Diagram showing the alignment of the Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn. Image courtesy of timeanddate.com.
In order for a Great Conjunction to occur, this means that three planets — Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn — need to be lined up almost perfectly in a row. Since these three objects are orbiting the Sun at different speeds, this alignment only happens every 20 years. The precise proximity of Jupiter and Saturn to each other in our field of view can vary among Great Conjunctions, and the 2020 event is special because they have not been this close together in our sky since the year 1623. Historically, the rarity of conjunctions led many cultures to see the events as significant omens; some saw them as good signs, others as bad ones. There is speculation among some people around the world that a Great Conjunction may have caused the “Christmas Star,” the special object that was said to have appeared to the Wise Men, leading them to Bethlehem in the well-known story of Christmas.
You can prepare for the Great Conjunction this week by practicing finding Jupiter and Saturn in your backyard sky. At 5 p.m. EST, the sun will have set, but the sky will be in a stage of twilight. The two planets will be in the direction of southwest, and they will appear brighter than all of the visible stars. By 6 p.m., the twilight will be fading but the planets will be lower in the sky. By 7 p.m., the planets will be so low on the horizon that many of us will not have a clear view of them. Try to note what time this week the planets disappear below your line of sight. You’ll want to go out at least 15 minutes earlier than that on the night of December 21 to ensure that you can witness the Great Conjunction.
To learn more about the Great Conjunction and its possible religious connections, join us at the Treworgy Planetarium for our “Star of Bethlehem” show at 3 p.m., Thursday-Sunday. The show will run through Sunday, December 27.
This post was written by Brian Koehler, supervisor of the Treworgy Planetarium at the Museum.
What the Aurora Borealis might look like in Connecticut
You may have heard on the news that there is a possibility for the Northern Lights, or the Aurora Borealis, to be visible here in Connecticut over the next few nights. It’s true! There’s something really interesting going on between the Sun and Earth right now, and it might make for a fantastic display over the next couple of evenings.
The creation of the Aurora Borealis begins with sunspots, little brown freckles on the surface of the Sun. These spots are caused when loops of electromagnetic energy get twisted and burst through the surface of our “mother star.” When a sunspot is visible, the electromagnetic energy is still under the control of the Sun’s gravity. But the Sun cannot hold onto it forever, so a sunspot can sometimes turn into a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), at which point the Sun ejects the energy and sends it hurling out into the solar system. Many times, these CMEs can steer clear of Earth, but when they head our way, they can collide and interact with the electromagnetic field of our home planet. This collision will cause the shimmering curtains of green, blue, and sometimes purple light that we call the Aurora Borealis!
Image courtesy NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.
Since Earth’s electromagnetic energy is concentrated at our poles, the Aurora is always most likely to appear at the highest of latitudes. The larger the CME, the more likely it is that the Aurora could be visible at lower latitudes. Well, this CME is definitely on the bigger side, meaning there is a possibility that the Northern Lights could be dazzling across our night sky tonight and/or tomorrow night!
The best time of night to view the Aurora Borealis in Connecticut will be between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. on both nights, December 9-10. It is best viewed if you can reach an area without many artificial lights, so its is best to avoid street lights and parking lots if you can. You’ll want to look North towards Polaris, the North Star, since this event will be forming in the polar region. Weather will also play a role in the next few nights. Today (Wednesday) we are looking at clouds clearing hopefully between 10-11 p.m.. Tomorrow night looks very clear right now. For more information on this event and on solar activity in general, here is a great online resource: https://www.spaceweather.com/
This news post was written by Brian Koehler, supervisor of the Museum’s Treworgy Planetarium.
The Fall/Winter 2020 issue of the Museum’s magazine features articles on navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, the new figureheads exhibit, the restoration of the Friendship sloop Estella A., a farewell to Executive Vice President Susan Funk after 40 years of service, and an opportunity to meet the new president, Peter Armstrong, and the new senior vice president, Dr. Christina Connett Brophy.
Peter J Armstrong. (Image Courtesy Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation)
Peter Armstrong (Image Courtesy Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation)
Museum Appoints Christina Connett Brophy as Senior Vice President of Curatorial Affairs and Senior Director of Museum Galleries
Peter Armstrong is appointed the next president of Mystic Seaport Museum, the organization’s board of trustees announced today. An accomplished museum professional with more than 25 years of experience on two continents, Armstrong joins the Museum from the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, where he is Senior Director of Museum Operations and Education. The board also announced the appointment of Dr. Christina Connett Brophy as Senior Vice President of Curatorial Affairs and Senior Director of Museum Galleries.
“We are excited about the appointments of Peter and Christina as they bring well-honed, complementary talents to MSM. Peter has extensive management skills and experience as director of operations of a large and complex museum organization combined with great marketing knowhow. Christina brings outstanding maritime museum curatorial experience and demonstrated success in innovative programming and exhibitions development,” said Michael S. Hudner, Chair of the Mystic Seaport Museum Board of Trustees. “Both Peter and Christina have had exceptional achievements in broadening and diversifying more traditional audiences with new approaches to increase the appeal of well-known institutions to a changing world.”
In his position of Senior Director at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Armstrong oversees education, collections, exhibitions, and interpretation as well as directing two major museums and their living history sites. He led the transition from the Yorktown Victory Center—a small museum with some living history areas—to the new, $50-million, state-of-the-art American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, which opened in April 2017. Most recently in 2019, he oversaw the creation of the special exhibition TENACITY, which focused on the arrival of the first women to Jamestown, and Forgotten Soldier, which features the personal stories of enslaved and free African Americans who fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War.
Armstrong came to the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation from the United Kingdom’s National Museum of Arms and Armour, also known as the Royal Armouries. The Royal Armouries has three museums, the most famous of which is the Tower of London. During his tenure, Armstrong developed and promoted several major exhibitions, including Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill at the Tower of London.
“Mystic Seaport Museum has a worldwide reputation for excellence, quality and good old-fashioned fun. As the Museum heads towards its centenary, I am excited to be able to play a role in continuing the legacy of the retiring president, and to work with the board and the Mystic team to deliver a modern, relevant, diverse, and community-focused future,” said Armstrong.
Dr. Christina Connett Brophy
Dr. Christina Connett Brophy is currently the Douglas and Cynthia Crocker Endowed Chair for the Chief Curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum (NBWM), where she has been a senior executive for seven years. While there she demonstrated systemic strategic leadership, successful fundraising, increased branding and outreach, partnership development, and path-breaking initiatives that have impacted NBWM towards a unified vision, national and international media recognition, an increase in visitation, greater connectivity with a diverse community, and a stronger and more sustainable financial position. She has curated more than 30 exhibitions, notably A Spectacle in Motion: The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World and A Wild Note of Longing: Albert Pinkham Ryder and a Century of American Art, which will open in June 2021.
“There is a magic to Mystic Seaport Museum that is unique and rare, a tribute to its committed Board, staff and volunteers, its exquisite collections, and an historic and beautiful working waterfront. I am thrillled to be given the opportunity to streamline the Museum’s offerings towards a focused and 21st century global model, while remaining true to our nation’s rich maritime heritage,” said Connett Brophy. “There is extraordinary potential here to increase relevancy to a broader audience, particularly in addressing critical social and environmental issues facing the world today.”
Hudner expressed gratitude for retiring President and CEO Steve White, who is working to ensure a smooth transition of leadership as the Museum navigates the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over White’s 12 years at the helm, the Museum was recognized for the ambition of its initiatives, notably the restoration and 38th Voyage of the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan and the fundraising and construction of the $15 million McGraw Gallery Quadrangle project anchored by the award-winning Thompson Exhibition Building.
I am very pleased to hand over the reins to two such exemplary people,” said White. “Their experience, energy, and broad perspective will serve the Museum well as the institution continues to demonstrate and explain the continuing relevance of the sea and maritime heritage to contemporary audiences.”
