The Klaxon Online

Apr-June 2009

From the Director

SFMLA OIC

Gregory Caskey
CDR, USN
Officer in Charge

Two long standing goals of the museum have been the Docent Program and the Education Program.  The Docent program is approaching its third anniversary, continues to thrive and now supports the museum six days per week.  Last November we held a modest Docent appreciation reception to thank our “extended family” of volunteers for their continued support and enthusiasm.  We are working hard to ensure that this relationship continues to mature and look forward to many more such recognition events in the years to come. 

I am happy to report with this issue of the Klaxon that we have also reached a major milestone with the Education Program.  After years of effort to obtain funding, we have finally been able to hire an education specialist as part of the full time staff at the museum.  This person brings years of experience to the job and the eagerness to ramp up our embryonic education program.  We will provide a full article on the education specialist in the next issue of the Klaxon.

As a part of our effort to improve, update and modernize museum exhibits, we have just put in to place a new submarine model in the City beneath the Sea exhibit space.  This new 688i cut away scale model is the product of over one year’s effort in construction, is a significant quality improvement over the model it replaced and is a welcome addition to the museum.

Lastly, many of you may have heard, Submarine NR-1, the Navy’s only nuclear powered deep diving oceanographic research submarine, was inactivated in November 2008 after nearly 40 years service.  We are attempting to obtain all or a part of this submarine as a permanent exhibit at the Submarine Force Library & Museum.  It will be a long process as NR-1 is not scheduled to be dismantled at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard until 2015.  However, in the meantime we hope to obtain the sail and fairwater planes sometime later this year and will place it on display as an interim NR-1 exhibit.  More to follow on that.