Individual Submarine Boards > USS Marlin (SST-2)

Update on the Marlin and Freedom Park

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Viejo:
Gents, wanted you to know what has been happening with the Marlin and Freedom Park.  Last week, I met with Brook Bench,  the head of Maintenance for Omaha Parks and Rec, who is in charge of keeping up over 250 parks in Omaha and the surrounding area, and with Brenda Paul,  the Special Projects Coordinator for the Parks in Omaha.  The meeting was very positive. The first thing expressed at the meeting was the passing along of thanks from the Mayor and City Council of Omaha for what we had done so far.
 Brook Bench, head of maintenance is very enthused with the park and very appreciate of what we have been able to do so far. He is bringing in one of his crews to remodel the small gazebo inside and out so we can have it for the gift shop. He also is turning on and fixing all the restrooms and will make sure the heaters in the gazebo and the Hazard are working. 
I have been asked to set up a committee to oversee the running of the park and we have already set up some short and long term plans to expand what is there. We are setting up financial accounts and have in place forms to use for tax deductible donations. We will be able to keep separate donations for those who want money to go to the Marlin or to the Hazard.
The XO of Stratcom is a Captain in the Navy who has commanded submarines and he has accepted my offer to be on the committee. We also have a retired Navy Captain who was a sub squadron commander that works for one of the contractors at Offutt and he too will be helping us out.
We are forming the USS Marlin SST-2 Base under the command of HMCS(SS) Mike Loftis. Mike is gathering applications and will be sending them to the CDC3 to get the charter back for the base. The major project for the base will be in helping out the park and serving as docents and maintenance people for the two ships.
In case I haven't mentioned it yet, we did get the outside of the Marlin scraped and painted this fall and also a helicopter and this last week the 5" gun and one of the missiles. We have had eagle scouts doing much of the painting in the park and many of the small pieces of armament have been repainted this fall.  The park is really starting to look nice again.
 This weekend, I'll be meeting with several of the volunteers to set up some priority lists of things that we want to get done this winter and what we hope to have accomplished next spring. The painting of the Hazard will be done as soon as it is warm enough next spring.
By next spring, we will be a RSVP site and will have enough volunteers from the Omaha area to be open each weekend. The goal is back to being open each day as it once was. Having a core of dedicated sub sailors will make this much easier. And I want to add that so far, each of them understand that it is a privilege to work with the park and that working on the whole park is beneficial to promoting the Marlin.  We will be using the park to have various ceremonies during the year and it will of course help us live our creed.
Also, thanks to Bill Parker, Rich Pekelney and others, we are now a HNSA site again and that is already giving us benefits that we can see.  While at the convention, I got to meet Aaron Washington, who was down there with Bill, and I will as I have been, be picking their brains for ways to make things work better.  Greg Stitz, curator of the Razorback, came up on a Saturday, bringing me a trunk load of things to display at the park and gave me much valuable advice about things as we walked around the park. He even knew what the guns were that sit around the park. :D
I can't  overstate the cooperation and willingness of Brenda and Brook and others from the city to allow us to be a part of the park.  You couldn't ask for better people to work for and they really appreciate what the subvets and other volunteers have done so far.  8) I have written up application forms and other documents for volunteers to sign and use as they come to work with the park and am writing training manuals for them to use.  We are set up with a non-profit corp. run through the city and have our first tax deductible donation going through now.
So we'll be working all winter, fixing things and getting set up for the spring and then hit the ground running.
Oh, yes, the city is redoing the web page for the park and I also am figuring how to set up an online forum for the park managment committee to us.
I'll keep all posted here as more gets done.
Bill

JTheotonio:
Lots of work Bill, thanks for the update.  :)

Lance Dean:
Bill,

I moved this topic over to the Marlin board.  I hope it doesn't get lost in the shuffle.  Thank you so much for the update on the Marlin.  Like I said before, it's amazing what people can accomplish when volunteers get together!

Viejo:
Lance, no problem.  It is really starting to tick me off that everytime I or others mention doing something like this at USSVI, all we hear is that no one will support anything and you can't count on volunteers to keep things up. People will always help out, but you do have to ask first.  I am really pleased at the attitude of the subvets and their being willing to help out as needed, no matter what part of the park it is. Course the whole park is a Navy Museum.  Also the city is very accomadating about making sure funds go where people want them to go.
Bill

Viejo:
I wanted to put up some pictures of the new paint job on the Marlin. Also we have had the Helicopter and some of the guns and shells repainted this fall. Next Spring, we'll do the outside of the Hazard and will start repainting the inside of the Marlin.
Viejo

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