The State of Connecticut today named Mystic Seaport President Steve White the 2015 Tourism Leader of the Year. The award honors an individual who has made a singular contribution to the advancement of the tourism industry in Connecticut.

“One word captures the essence of this leader and that is vision,” said Arthur Diedrick, chairman of the state’s Tourism Advisory Board, who presented the award to White at the annual Connecticut Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Hartford. When faced with the challenges of the recent recession, “rather than retreat he advanced the organization with a truly revolutionary vision.”

White was recognized for the Museum’s accomplishments since he assumed the position of president in 2009, most notably the restoration and 2014 38th Voyage of the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan, a project that garnered national and international attention. Over the course of two months, the National Historic Landmark vessel sailed from Connecticut to six ports in southern New England drawing tens of thousands of visitors and generating awareness of the importance of maritime heritage and promoting the state as a tourism destination to a worldwide audience.

White was also acknowledged for the leadership role he and Mystic Seaport play in regional collaboration efforts.  A charter member of the Greater Mystic Visitors Bureau, the Museum participates in numerous successful partnerships and promotions with the local and regional business community, including a joint pass, the Mystic Pass (“Sea Everything”), with the Mystic Aquarium, local businesses, and the Mashantucket Pequot Museum that is a very successful tool to drive sales at multiple points.

Additionally, Mystic Seaport has just embarked on a $15 million capital investment in the construction of a new exhibition building and campus enhancements that will greatly add to the Museum’s ability to present and host world-quality exhibits that will draw additional visitation to the region year-round.

“I am honored to accept this award, but I do so on behalf of our talented, dedicated staff who present the Museum to the public in a most compelling and memorable manner, and for the greater Mystic community who strive to make our corner of the state one of the great destinations in New England,” said White.

The annual award is open to any leader of a travel- or tourism-related organization headquartered in Connecticut.

According to a recent study released by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, the tourism industry supports more than 118,000 jobs statewide—including 80,000 direct jobs— representing 5.3 percent of all employment in the state.

The McGraw Gallery Quadrangle project is entering a significant new phase as the contractor has almost completed demolition work and site preparation is underway for the construction of the Thompson Exhibition Building and the quadrangle landscaping.

The plan called for the G.W. Blunt White Building, the North Boat Shed, and the brick outbuilding that formerly housed the Benjamin F. Packard Ship’s Cabin to be razed. The Packard Cabin and the Cruising Club of America (CCA) exhibit that was on the first floor of Blunt White are both being relocated to the Stillman Building. The CCA exhibit, “The Adventurous Use of the Sea“, has also been reproduced as an online exhibit.

The McGraw Gallery Quadrangle is a major undertaking by Mystic Seaport to transform the north end of the Museum to greatly enhance the quality of exhibition space and offer a more robust year-round experience for visitors. The distinctive Quad will mesh existing buildings and grounds with the new exhibition building. Named for the late Donald C. McGraw, a longtime Mystic Seaport supporter and passionate advocate for the collection and preservation of maritime artifacts, the Quad seeks to unify the components of the north end of the Museum by focusing on their common role as formal exhibition galleries. The Quad’s cornerstone, the 14,000 square-foot Thompson Exhibition Building, named for the late trustee, Wade Thompson, and designed by the renowned Connecticut firm Centerbrook Architects and Planners, will house exemplary exhibition facilities, the latest technologies, and flexible spaces to engage with visitors and serve their diverse interests.

With demolition complete, work will focus on the drilling of 20 465-foot deep wells for a geothermal heating and cooling system, the installation of new electrical, telecom, and water infrastructure, and additional site preparation in advance of pouring the foundation for the Thompson Building. The contractor will also address the Quad landscaping with an intended completion and opening to the public early this summer.

“The project is moving along very smoothly despite a challenging winter in terms of snow and work conditions, and we are very excited to move from the demolition phase to actual construction of the new Thompson Building and Quad,” said Ken Wilson, director of facilities at Mystic Seaport.

In addition to the new construction, most of the existing exhibit galleries around the Quad are receiving upgrades and new exhibits. This June “Voyaging in the Wake of the Whalers” will open on the first floor of the Stillman Building. This 4,400 square-foot exhibit is a fresh take on the history of American whaling and will combine Museum artifacts, artwork, audiovisual elements, and interactive displays to facilitate an understanding of the forces that initially drove the whaling industry, humankind’s changing perceptions of whales, and the latest research into whale-human interactions. The exhibit will also incorporate elements from the Charles W. Morgan‘s 38th Voyage last summer.

In September, “Ships, Clocks & Stars — The Quest for Longitude” will open in the R.J. Schaefer Building. This award winning exhibit, produced by the National Maritime Museum in London, tells the story of humankind’s epic effort to solve the riddle of determining longitude, ultimately accomplished by John Harrison’s achievement of building the perfect clock. The exhibit has 148 artifacts, art objects, and working replicas of the original Harrison chronometers–including the actual case of his H4 chronometer that won the coveted Longitude Prize, the X-Prize of the 18th century. Mystic Seaport is just one of three museums worldwide selected to host the exhibit outside the United Kingdom.

The project is scheduled for completion in fall 2016 with the opening of the Thompson Building.

Periodically, Mystic Seaport sponsors a visit of a maritime professional or scholar through the Mallory Exchange Fellowship to come to the Museum for a short period of time for study and research purposes. The 2015 Fellow is Sarah Sjøgreen, a ropemaker from the Hardanger Fartøyvernsenter (Hardanger Ship Preservation Center), a museum, traditional ropewalk, and boat-building center in Norway. Her project, “Lines Across the Atlantic: An Exploration of Ropemaking Techniques from the Time of the Vikings through the Turn of the 20th Century”, aims to explore traditional New England rigging practices and materials and to connect them with the more modern history of the fisheries of Northern Europe.

“I have been looking into American ropemaking in the Blunt White Research Library and in the ropewalk exhibit to try and figure out some of the bits that have not already been studied,” she said.

Sjøgreen is being sponsored by Mystic Seaport staff member Sarah Clement, one of the Museum’s riggers. In addition to their time exploring the documents, artifacts, and vessels at the Museum, the two took a field trip to meet with staff at the South Street Seaport in New York to examine their vessels.

Sjøgreen has also been asked to evaluate the Museum’s Plymouth Cordage Company Ropewalk exhibit to try to come up with recommendations of alternative ways to interpret it for the visitor.

When asked how the U.S. and European ropemaking histories differ, she responded:

“You have used a lot of manila, where the Europeans continued to use hemp a bit longer, and you started spinning fibers on machinery earlier than the Europeans did, so you commercialized it more and faster,” she said. “We had a lot of working ropewalks—a huge number of ropewalks—but they continued hand spinning much longer. Perhaps that’s why they kept using hemp for a longer time. I need to look into that.”

In addition to the knowledge of American ropemaking she is picking up on her fellowship, Sjøgreen says she will bring back a number of valuable contacts.

“It’s been very good to get in touch with a lot of people who have a common interest in another part of the world; I think that’s very important,” she said. Sjøgreen will return to Norway after three weeks at the Museum.

The Mallory Endowment was established in 1993 by Wade and Angela Thompson to honor Clifford and Pauline Mallory for their many years of service to Mystic Seaport. The purpose of the fund is to create an international exchange program between the Museum and other institutions.

The alternating schedule has an international scholar coming to the Museum for study and research purposes on one year; and in the next a Mystic Seaport staff member visits a foreign museum for the same purpose.

The construction and re-configuring of the north end of the Mystic Seaport campus for the new McGraw Gallery Quadrangle and the Thompson Exhibition Building unfortunately requires the demolition of the G.W. Blunt White Building.

The building was constructed in 1964 and was purpose-built to house the Museum’s growing library. The man for which the building was named was a successful businessman in the Mystic area. Along the way he started sailing, eventually becoming the Commodore of the Cruising Club of America. He also took an interest in the local Marine Historical Society (known today as Mystic Seaport), joining the Board of Trustees in 1947 and serving as the Vice President from 1955 until his death from a heart attack in 1962 while doing what he loved: sailing.

Unfortunately, throughout its existence, the building suffered from chronic flooding due to the site’s high water table and moisture and mold was a perennial problem. In fact, the unsuitable conditions in the building resulted in the research library being moved across the street to the Collections Research Center (the library still bears the Blunt White name). Serious thought was given to incorporating the granite-veneer core of the building into the new exhibition hall, but the environmental issues and additional construction costs could not be justified. In the end, completely new construction made more sense for the overall project and site.

During the demolition of the building a special time capsule was recovered. Mrs. G.W. Blunt White helped seal the time capsule behind the newly laid cornerstone in October, 1964, and on March 16, 2015, with the help of the project contractor A/Z Corporation, the sealed copper box was removed and handed over to the Museum’s Collections and Research Vice President Paul O’Pecko for safekeeping. A few of the items found in the time capsule, which can be seen in the photo above, include Blunt White’s distinctive private pennant; an issue of the New York Times from July, 1964, showing Operation Sail in which schooner Brilliant participated; a number of Cruising Club of America (CCA)-related items; and papers and pamphlets related to the Museum’s happenings of the day.

Henry duPont, in recognizing the importance of his good friend at the time, spoke of the importance of a library to such an institution. “Bricks and mortar, steel and wood–fashioned in a beautiful and commodious building–do not in themselves create a library. The real library is the collection of important and meaningful books, manuscripts and publications, and the uses to which they are put.”

Mystic Seaport still celebrates the man after whom the library was named and takes comfort in the fact that the library collections are in a better environment and still serving the purpose about which duPont spoke half a century ago.