AAAHHH!!!
I post up that I'm away and then forget to come back!!
It's absolutely insane here, trying to make sense of policies, procedures, and 35 years of embedded methodology...
The museum is chugging along, and we're doing well...so, I'll try to answer all the questions and comments in this thread at least...
Dave, I got involved in the aviation museum by being in the right place at the right time. Having been a militry historian at teh onset, I had just finished my Fletcher book for the Warship Perspectives Series, and one of my flying buddies was involved with the museum. I was working for a computer company as a network engineer (LAN/WAN/AS400/Mainframe to NT and Netware integrations) when they annouced they were looking for a potential replacement for the founder of the museum who was having health problems at the time.
Since I was an aircraft junkie to begin with, and willing to work for alot less than I was making, they hired me. Been here ever since.
I got involved with ships casually, as a sidebar to building aircraft. Then when I started here, I was immersed in 1:1 aircraft, the last thing I wanted to do was model them when I got home. I tried cars, armor, even figures, but finally settled on ships.
That progressed into forming a partnership with Tim Dike at Modelwarships.com. I've managed to keep my job separate from my hobby. When I build aircraft, it's usually late war Luftwaffe stuff, since I don't have a Do-335 or Fw-190D-9 in my museum to play with !
With regards to answering questions, I amaze myself at the crap I retain...I can't balance my checkbook, but I can tell useless trivia about warships and aircraft and armor...I guess I'm pretty well placed in the job...good thing I'm not in finance!
Thanks to all those that posted their comments, it's appreciated!
All the best,
Jeff