2020 marked the 60th anniversary of the Connecticut Aeronautical Historical Association, the parent organization of the New England Air Museum (NEAM). Founded in 1960 by local aviation enthusiasts, NEAM is the largest aerospace museum in our region. Home to over one hundred historic aircraft, a renowned aircraft restoration facility, and a robust collection of aircraft components, objects, and exhibits, the museum’s mission is to preserve and interpret New England’s aviation history while inspiring the next generation of aerospace enthusiasts. This mission is supported by a small staff as well as over 150 dedicated volunteers, many of whom are retired pilots, aerospace engineers, or aviation industry professionals who have been with the museum for decades.

In honor of the museum’s 60th anniversary, NEAM’s staff and volunteers were planning several commemorative events for 2020. Those plans ground to a halt on March 13th, when we voluntarily closed our doors to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Like many others at the time, my colleagues and I assumed this closure would last two or three weeks at most. In the end, we were closed for more than two months, and when we finally reopened in late May 2020, our focus shifted from celebration to survival. We pivoted our entire business model to ensure we could continue fulfilling our mission while preserving the safety of our visitors, volunteers, and staff. As such, all 60th anniversary programs and events were officially cancelled.

Although 2020 was hardly the 60th birthday year we envisioned, to quote Benjamin Franklin, “out of adversity comes opportunity.” This is something our organization knows all too well, as COVID-19 is not the first seemingly catastrophic event we have faced in our institutional history. On October 3, 1979, an F-4 tornado struck what was then known as the Bradley Air Museum, leveling our World War II era hangar and damaging or destroying most of our aircraft. Many organizations would have folded in the wake of such a disaster. We didn’t. Thanks to the dedication of our volunteers, staff, and supporters, we rose up from the ashes and rebuilt, becoming a bigger and better museum than before. Overcoming adversity and creating opportunity is woven into the fabric of NEAM’s history, and so it seems fitting that despite the challenges wrought by COVID-19, we still found a way to celebrate our 60th anniversary through the NEAM: 60 Years, 60 Stories project.

NEAM: 60 Years, 60 Stories is a multimedia digital history project that celebrates the New England Air Museum’s 60th anniversary through the stories of the people, objects, and events that define our institutional history. The project draws on oral histories of current and former volunteers and staff as well as historic images from our archives. The project’s origins date back to our COVID-19 closure. While scrambling to develop new content for our online initiatives, I discovered a document I created when I first came to the museum in 2015 that included a list of ideas for new projects and programs. Among these ideas was an oral history project to document the knowledge and experience of the museum’s volunteer corps. It occurred to me that this type of project would be perfectly suited to commemorating the museum’s 60th anniversary, for who better to tell NEAM’s history than the people who made helped make it possible? Around the same time, one of my part-time staff members reached out with news that her summer internship was cancelled and that she was looking for a volunteer project at the museum to fulfill her public history graduate program’s internship requirements. Shortly thereafter, I connected with our volunteer webmaster about the feasibility of creating a website within the museum’s website to house audio files, photos, and text related to the museum’s 60th anniversary. He not only confirmed it was possible; he offered to help develop it. With this skilled, enthusiastic team assembled, I began working on what affectionately became known as the “60/60” project.

Over the next six months, the three of us spent countless hours researching, interviewing, designing, writing, and editing the content of the “60/60” project. Tianna Darling, a member of my part-time Public Programs Team, served as the project’s researcher, conducting oral history interviews with more than 30 current and former NEAM staff and volunteers in addition to assembling the project’s archive of photos, video, and audio. Gary Gudinkas, the museum’s volunteer webmaster, served as the project’s developer, building the website and merging the project’s cache of content into a seamless multimedia digital exhibit. As project supervisor, I oversaw the work of these talented, dedicated individuals as we collectively brought the “60/60” project from concept to reality. The project officially launched in December 2020, and the response from museum volunteers, members, and supporters has been overwhelming. Viewers have called the project, “a love letter to NEAM,” “…a testament to NEAM’s legacy,” and “a triumph,” while others have praised its use of technology as well as its widespread reach. In a year that gave us very little to celebrate, the NEAM: 60 Years, 60 Stories project has given our museum community the 60th birthday it deserved.

NEAM: 60 Years, 60 Stories commemorates the museum’s history while honoring the people who have helped make this organization special. It also represents a new chapter in our legacy of overcoming adversity and embracing opportunity. From tornados to COVID-19, the indomitable spirit of the New England Air Museum is celebrated in this project, making it a pandemic pivot of which I and my colleagues can be very proud.