SSHSA Latest News:

JanuARY 13, 2012

Annual Meeting in Baltimore, May 2012

December 15, 2011

President's Column

A Holiday Celebration at the Aldrich Mansion

SSHSA Welcomes Jim Pennypacker and Jillian Fulda

Images from the ACBS International Boat Show

2012 Annual Meeting 

On Friday May 18th SSHSA will host the first ShiPosium, where representatives of endangered vessels and ship history enthusiasts will gather to share their experiences in their efforts to preserve historic vessels.  Feature vessels include the Olympia, United States, Delta Queen, Badger, and Savannah.   Attendees will represent many more endangered vessels, such as Charles D. Gaither, Lilac, JB Ford, and Columbia.

On Saturday SSHSA will hold its Annual Meeting onboard the Savannah, which all SSHSA members are welcome to attend.  Following the meeting members will be free to tour the Savannah, and afterwards participate in National Maritime Day activities on the vessel.  Members will be able to attend a luncheon hosted by the USMMA KP Alumni Chesapeake Chapter.  In the evening SSHSA will host an awards reception and dinner.

SSHSA's Board of Directors will meet on Sunday morning.  All members attending the meeting activities will receive complimentary passes to visit Historic Ships of Baltimore vessels.

Hotel Accomodations

SSHSA has made arrangements for special rates at local hotels in the area.  You may be asked the "organization name" which is Steamship Historical Society of America, or "Group" name which is SSHSA.

Marriott Baltimore Courtyard Downtown
1000 Aliceanna Street, Baltimore
Call (800) 321-2211 or (443)923-4000 for reservations
Group rate is $159/night plus tax
*This hotel is located in the Harbor East neighborhood, one block from the scenic waterfront and an easy walk to the National Aquarium, Fells Point, Little Italy, and inner harbor attractions. Our Friday evening reception is tentatively scheduled to be held at this Marriott hotel location. 

Conference Center at the Maritime Insititute of Technology and Graduate Studies
692 Maritime Boulevard, Linthicum Heights, MD
Call (866) 900-3517 or www.ccmithotel.org for reservations
Group rate is $119/night plus tax
*This hotel is located approximately 9 miles from the waterfront area and from the Marriott hotel.  Our Saturday night banquet will take place at this hotel.

Group rates will be available until April 17, 2012.  Please also keep in mind that the Preakness horse race event will take place in Baltimore on May 19, so hotel rooms will be booking up fast!

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

President's Column

December 15, 2011

Since the last Telegraph, I’ve had the opportunity and pleasure on behalf of SSHSA to visit Lake Geneva, WI; Providence, RI; Philadelphia, Baltimore, the San Francisco Bay area and back to Providence again.  Not that there’s anything wrong with hanging around San Diego, but it is very rewarding to meet our members and take part in activities elsewhere.

Our participation in the Antique and Classic Boat Society meeting in Lake Geneva was terrific. Matt Schulte and I gave good promotional exposure to SSHSA, and in turn we saw more than 200 beautiful motor boats as well as a half dozen 100-year-old lake steamers (one of which is still steam-powered).

I attended the Delaware Valley Chapter meeting in October at the Independence Seaport Museum, once again meeting more of our members and enjoying dinner aboard the 110-year-old sailing ship Gazela. My thanks to Chapter Chair Steve Loveless for the invitation and arrangements. As part of the same trip, I visited the NS Savannah in Baltimore to lay the groundwork for our 2012 ShiPosium and Annual Meeting in May. Then in early December I visited the San Francisco Bay area and was welcomed to the Golden Gate Chapter’s bi-monthly meeting in Alameda where we enjoyed a ship-in-a-bottle show and tell, and a slide presentation of an NCL cruise around the British Isles. My thanks to Chapter Chair Norman Freitag and his officers for this opportunity.

I have been in Providence for a few days and will return to California on Friday, 12/16, hopefully and apparently before any snow falls. But it’s been plenty cold (at least I think so). We have added an enormous amount of former warehouse archives to the new headquarters, and with the very welcome help of some volunteers we have begun to get our arms around the extent of our holdings. But I can see a full two years of effort before we have inventoried and assessed everything we have. From what I see, we could well have three to five million individual resources, including books, brochures, records, models, plans, posters, paintings, artifacts and even bars of soap!

As always, please feel free to contact me with your thoughts, questions and comments, at 7959 Eastridge Drive, La Mesa, CA 91914; 619-466-4854; or jfhamma@aol.com. I always enjoy communicating with our members. I wish all of you and all of our members a very happy holiday season and a most healthy and prosperous 2012.

CDR John F. Hamma

President

A Holiday Celebration at the Aldrich Mansion

On Saturday, December 10th,  SSHSA members, staff, volunteers and board members celebrated the holiday season at the Aldrich Mansion, located in Rhode Island and overlooking Narragansett Bay. Click here to read more and view photos from the party.

The Aldrich Mansion is rich with history, an appropriate venue for a historical society.  Construction took place over a 16 year period beginning in 1896, for Rhode Island Senator Nelson W. Aldrich. It was here that Senator Aldrich’s daughter, Abby Aldrich, married John D. Rockefeller, Jr., son to Nelson A. Rockefeller and heir to his oil fortune. The main foyer, where party attendees enjoyed a cocktail hour, is filled with paintings and wood carvings and an elaborately designed ceiling trimmed with gold.  The buffet style dinner in the Ivory Room was delicious, and surely no one left  hungry. Dessert was laid out in spectacular fashion in the library, on a table filled with several types of cakes and pies.

Later in the evening, guests could return to the main foyer to dance the night away, or remain at their tables to discuss what had brought us all together in the first place, steamship history! The night was a great success and fun was had by all. It was a great opportunity for members and board members as well as staff and volunteers to mingle and gather together in the holiday spirit.  Thank you to all who attended!

SSHSA Welcomes Jim Pennypacker and Jillian Fulda

We would like to welcome Jim Pennypacker of Pennypacker & Associates, the new Editor-in-Chief of PowerShips magazine. Jim brings with him a wealth of experience in the business world and we are thrilled to have him onboard.

Jim brings more than 30 years experience in marketing and publishing to lead an organization at the forefront of a rapidly changing business landscape. A highly entrepreneurial and creative information professional, Jim has spent his entire career helping firms use content to build and develop new markets, generate and nurture leads, and foster customer loyalty.

Jim was most recently Director of the Center for Business Practices, the research and publishing arm of the management consultancy PM Solutions.  There he led the development of an active thought leadership marketing program that positioned the company as a premier provider of management services.

Jim was formerly the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Project Management Institute.  Prior to that, Jim was the founder and publisher of Fox Pond Communications, a publishing services organization that was on the cutting edge of microcomputer-based publishing. Jim began his career as Assistant to the President and Marketing Director of Transaction Publishers, a social science publishing house based at Rutgers University.

Jim has been a thought leader himself over the years, author and editor of more than twenty books and research reports on a variety of business issues. He presents regularly at conferences and his articles on business issues appear in numerous professional journals. Jim holds an M.B.A./Technology and Electronic Commerce from West Chester University

We also want to welcome Jillian Fulda, Development Office Assistant, to the SSHSA staff. Jillian hails from Rocky Hill, CT and graduated in May 2011 from the University of Rhode Island with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history.  She plans to attend graduate school next year to study library science.  Jillian has been working part-time with SSHSA President John Hamma and Executive Director Matt Schulte on SSHSA's Annual Fund.

Images from ACBS' 36th Annual International Boat Show

Photos by SSHSA Executive Director Matt Schulte