USPA continues to fund ISMHOF

I read the whole thread. Now  some questions for you. Have you asked for a refund of the money that went to the museum? If so what was the response? Do you ask for refunds of your tax dollars that go to things you don't agree with?

USPA is the agency that is central for all things skydiving in the US so why shouldn't they support a very important part of the sport.

The only narrow mindedness I see is someone seems to want to run the museum and is pissed he can't so is trying disrupt it. Good things take time. 

it looks to me like he wants some results and after waiting almost half a century i think it is justified.  he has some good points and offered some solutions.  i think it is time to open everything up and let anyone who wants to look, look.  if a member has a concern that his (and everyone else's) money is being used in a way that is counter productive or is being wasted, then he has a right to challenge that and have it looked into further.  could he have done a better job?  maybe, maybe not.  does that negate his concerns?  absolutely not.  i am going to jump in and help now, as i am concerned as well.  and i think he did comment that he got his money back and thanked someone for it, but am not gonna go look now.

2 hours ago, accumack said:

I read the whole thread. Now  some questions for you. Have you asked for a refund of the money that went to the museum? If so what was the response? Do you ask for refunds of your tax dollars that go to things you don't agree with?

USPA is the agency that is central for all things skydiving in the US so why shouldn't they support a very important part of the sport.

The only narrow mindedness I see is someone seems to want to run the museum and is pissed he can't so is trying disrupt it. Good things take time. 

Both Mike Mullins and Paul Gholson stated they wude refund any members portion of their dues the BOD committed to this. I suggested Mike cude pay for the whole donation for less than half the cost of a rebuild on just 1 of the motors on his plane. So far, he has remained silent. Paul made his offer, I posted my PP acct and he put $5.83 in it. A Man of his word. As far as Government waste, do I even need to answer that?

Answer this, why did the BOD decide to donate to an organization that has not gotten ANYTHING done in 48 yrs? No oversight. 0 accountability and at best, a questionable business plan? At the same time, choosing to ignore funding athletes for competitions, assisting DZ's to operate at airports. Those 2 things require members separate donations. 

As far as doing all this effort so I can "run" the museum, what possible benefit is there to that? I've never stated that and won't. I HAVE stated my reasons and if you read all these posts, you'd know what it is. Or you can continue to be an ignorant enabler and allow this to continue for another 48 yrs of failure. 

Perhaps that's your idea of. "Good things take time....."

3 hours ago, accumack said:

I read the whole thread. Now  some questions for you. Have you asked for a refund of the money that went to the museum? If so what was the response? Do you ask for refunds of your tax dollars that go to things you don't agree with?

USPA is the agency that is central for all things skydiving in the US so why shouldn't they support a very important part of the sport.

The only narrow mindedness I see is someone seems to want to run the museum and is pissed he can't so is trying disrupt it. Good things take time. 

I also noticed on your profile, it appears that you have been in the sport for 51 yrs. Is that true? If so, you were here before, well, almost all of us. Haven't you wondered what's taking so long? Did you know Ottley? If so, what wude he think of this whole thing? And finally, none of us live forever, wouldn't you like to see this done before you go?

Perhaps I can shed some light on Baronn’s biggest concern of the Museum... 48 years of nothing.  Two years ago, I had the same questions.  Instead of taking the approach of making accusations and insults on the internet, I chose a different road. I asked some people that knew. My good friend Gary Peek was a USPA Board member for decades, and gave me the following historical explanation.  

   Bill Ottley was the initial proponent of the idea. It was his “baby”. When he died, he left $1,000,000 as seed money to develop the concept of a Skydiving Museum.  Not much was done for about 40 years. Money collected interest, small donations were made to incrementally increase the amount. USPA supported the concept with some donated clerical support and free advertising in Parachutist.  
  When USPA sold their original office townhouse and built & moved to their present location about a decade ago, the Museum made a deal and acquired an adjacent building lot next to USPA headquarters. The idea at the time was to build the Museum next to the USPA building. One could go in one door, the Museum, or turn the other way for USPA.  If you have ever been to USPA Headquarters, it seems the main entrance is “wrong”. It faces a vacant lot, not the parking lot as one would drive in. That’s because there was a plan to build a Skydiving Museum on that vacant lot.

    The problem is, there would be no reason to go to the Museum. It is not a destination. It’s not near any attraction. It’s an hour away from DC.  It is simply in a suburban business park.  Now, it’s great for USPA, but terrible for any kind of business dependent upon tourist traffic.

   So, about the time of President Bush’ AFF jump, the Museum seemed to come alive again. The leadership started installing new trustees, included President Bush as honorary Chairman, and undertook a serious effort to get something done. Since that period, they have quadrupled the money in the bank, dramatically increased and catalogued hundreds of Skydiving items of historic value, installed several high profile people as trustees,  hired a professional for fundraising, sought the advice of professionals in museum organization and management, and completely revamped the antiquated & unworkable original concepts.

   So to me, the situation is like this...I go to work for a business that has been around for 40 years, but never grown. In about 8 years, I quadruple the money in the bank, sign up almost a dozen of the top people in the industry to work for free, develop and catalog an inventory of over 1000 pieces of huge skydiving historical value and warehouse them for free, develop a concept where people and organizations from all over the world are sending money, and finally have some kind of definite goal line, and end result. Should I be supported & rewarded for my last 8 years of huge success and progress? Or should I be penalized for the previous 40 years where not much was done, and I had no control or input?

   What Baronn seems to not understand, all the money, inventory, donations, concepts have occurred in the last few years.  So if there is blame or fault, should it be cast at the previous 40 years? Or should the last 8 years be given some credit for the accomplishments made.  True, the end result is not yet accomplished. Yes, there may be some mistakes and compromises getting from “now to then”. But there is movement, there is forward progress.  
    This is the historical perspective I was given by longtime friend and USPA Board member Gary Peek.  It is not my opinion. If anyone wants to insult or trash Gary, go right ahead. I am sure it won’t bother him. If anyone cares to provide any additional first hand history, feel free.
 

Paul Gholson

On 2/18/2020 at 3:31 PM, skypilotA1 said:

Perhaps I can shed some light on Baronn’s biggest concern of the Museum... 48 years of nothing.  Two years ago, I had the same questions.  Instead of taking the approach of making accusations and insults on the internet, I chose a different road. I asked some people that knew. My good friend Gary Peek was a USPA Board member for decades, and gave me the following historical explanation.  

   Bill Ottley was the initial proponent of the idea. It was his “baby”. When he died, he left $1,000,000 as seed money to develop the concept of a Skydiving Museum.  Not much was done for about 40 years. Money collected interest, small donations were made to incrementally increase the amount. USPA supported the concept with some donated clerical support and free advertising in Parachutist.  
  When USPA sold their original office townhouse and built & moved to their present location about a decade ago, the Museum made a deal and acquired an adjacent building lot next to USPA headquarters. The idea at the time was to build the Museum next to the USPA building. One could go in one door, the Museum, or turn the other way for USPA.  If you have ever been to USPA Headquarters, it seems the main entrance is “wrong”. It faces a vacant lot, not the parking lot as one would drive in. That’s because there was a plan to build a Skydiving Museum on that vacant lot.

    The problem is, there would be no reason to go to the Museum. It is not a destination. It’s not near any attraction. It’s an hour away from DC.  It is simply in a suburban business park.  Now, it’s great for USPA, but terrible for any kind of business dependent upon tourist traffic.

   So, about the time of President Bush’ AFF jump, the Museum seemed to come alive again. The leadership started installing new trustees, included President Bush as honorary Chairman, and undertook a serious effort to get something done. Since that period, they have quadrupled the money in the bank, dramatically increased and catalogued hundreds of Skydiving items of historic value, installed several high profile people as trustees,  hired a professional for fundraising, sought the advice of professionals in museum organization and management, and completely revamped the antiquated & unworkable original concepts.

   So to me, the situation is like this...I go to work for a business that has been around for 40 years, but never grown. In about 8 years, I quadruple the money in the bank, sign up almost a dozen of the top people in the industry to work for free, develop and catalog an inventory of over 1000 pieces of huge skydiving historical value and warehouse them for free, develop a concept where people and organizations from all over the world are sending money, and finally have some kind of definite goal line, and end result. Should I be supported & rewarded for my last 8 years of huge success and progress? Or should I be penalized for the previous 40 years where not much was done, and I had no control or input?

   What Baronn seems to not understand, all the money, inventory, donations, concepts have occurred in the last few years.  So if there is blame or fault, should it be cast at the previous 40 years? Or should the last 8 years be given some credit for the accomplishments made.  True, the end result is not yet accomplished. Yes, there may be some mistakes and compromises getting from “now to then”. But there is movement, there is forward progress.  
    This is the historical perspective I was given by longtime friend and USPA Board member Gary Peek.  It is not my opinion. If anyone wants to insult or trash Gary, go right ahead. I am sure it won’t bother him. If anyone cares to provide any additional first hand history, feel free.
 

Paul Gholson

I continue to appreciate that Paul is the only BOD member that offers his perspective on this matter. Shows Character

My biggest issue has been that the BOD decided to donate part of members dues to it. I said so in my 1st post. Still is. Near half century this has been going on is bad. It's just not the worse.

When Bill Ottley died, clearly nobody stepped up to finish this project. That happens. Volunteer projects are often plagued like that. So it sat for awhile. Bush jumped, he got nominated and interest was sparked again. So far so good. Why didn't someone suggest to him to help find some space in a national museum? A great opportunity came and went. Nothing can be done about that now. Or is there? More later...

As far as quadrupling the amount of funding, how was that achieved? Well, a person was hired and getting paid quite well, pitched the BOD to give away members funds to this. With no input from the members themselves. No fact checking on the BOD's side. Just takes his word that this will get this done. He then used that donation to convince other parachute assoc. from around the world to contribute because the USPA did and they changed the name to International.. Gotta to admit, that was slick. Maybe you can share the number of folks that live outside this country that the "professionals in organization or management of Museums": have to say will visit?

"So to me, the situation is like this...I go to work for a business that has been around for 40 years, but never grown. In about 8 years, I quadruple the money in the bank, sign up almost a dozen of the top people in the industry to work for free, develop and catalog an inventory of over 1000 pieces of huge skydiving historical value and warehouse them for free, develop a concept where people and organizations from all over the world are sending money, and finally have some kind of definite goal line, and end result. Should I be supported & rewarded for my last 8 years of huge success and progress? Or should I be penalized for the previous 40 years where not much was done, and I had no control or input?"

Is this you or are you talking as the 3rd person? I suspect the latter. Who are these dozen top people in the industry?  You must mean the Trustees. The one's I researched that have the full time jobs outside of this business of getting projects of this nature done. Those Dozen? The organizing of the items was very commendable. Sandy Reid was involved in that. Took about a week from what I understand. Don't know if they were paid but, I hope they were. Had to be a lot of work. Still like to know where Bob Sinclairs van is.  Saying that hustling money from folks and organizing :over a 1000 items a "Huge success" in 8 yrs, is a stretch. Saying yer being penalized for the fact that not much did happen in the 40 yrs prior is petty. It's an historical fact and my pointing it out doesn't "penalize" anyone. Get over it. 

"True, the end result is not yet accomplished. Yes, there may be some mistakes and compromises getting from “now to then”. But there is movement, there is forward progress."

I suppose the politically correct thing to do wude be to give everyone that shows up, a medal for doing so. Never understood that but, if that's what yer lookin for OK. I still don't see why some simple due diligence can't be implemented. When funding is being saught, the normal route is to develop a plan from start to finish, figure out how much it's gonna cost. how it can continue as an entity and how long it's going to take to implement and THEN get the money. That's normal. Not here. We are gonna go out and raise as much money from whatever sources we can saying whatever needs to be said to do so. Forget that there is STILL no firm plans. Even after we use your 8 yr scenario. 

Wanna do something that can restore credibility? Start by getting 5 yrs worth of detailed financials from the ISMHOF. Let's see where the funding is actually going. And I'm not talking about a 990 IRS form. Need to see the details of the numbers on there. Tell them to put a REAL plan together. No more of these ridiculous, pie in the sky concepts that have little if any chance to happen..

 Of course, you can ignore my advice. Ignore my and other member requests to act like a responsible stewart of other folks funds and continue down the same path.

Or... you can be the only Board member that actually looked into this. Choice is yours.....