DEAR FRIENDS OF THE MUSEUM, In all, 2018 was another very successful year for the U.S. Naval Undersea Museum! It was a period of continued growth and I would like to take this opportunity to appreciate and celebrate all that we have accomplished in the last year. This annual report provides a year-in-review, and I think you will agree that we are up to some great things. The U.S. Naval Undersea Museum (USNUM) is an institution where responsible stewardship, service to the public, and a culture of caring, learning, innovation, and transparency are the measures of our impact on the U.S. Navy and the community in which we serve, and in the museum field to which we belong. Our stakeholders have taken note: we hosted more than 67,000 visits at our museum and 2.4 million online. Reflecting the museum’s commitment to its audiences, we were inducted into the TripAdvisor Hall of Fame for receiving the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence for five consecutive years. The award is given to organizations that receive consistent, outstanding reviews by TripAdvisor travelers. As we reflect on 2018, our nation and the world continue to experience challenging times. These times have reinforced the critical role that cultural institutions such as ours play in sharing the stories, both past and present, about the Navy’s rich heritage and place on the world’s stage. Our museum opens dialogues and highlights human experiences that shape and inspire us as individuals, cultures, and communities. One such avenue to share these stories is through our exhibit program. The newest exhibit Search, Spy, Rescue, Recover: Navy Vehicles Under the Sea shares information about how undersea vehicles grant new capabilities, optimize and simplify missions, and reduce risk to Sailors. The museum also opened a family learning area in 2018. The themes of the family learning area are to observe, ask, explore, reflect, and try again. These are skills that everyone has at their disposal to understand, discover, and create. By practicing these skills and through interactive challenges within the family learning area, families learn how they can be used every day by beginners and experts. The two recent additions to the exhibit gallery have really transformed the look and feel of the entire museum. Our education program is another key avenue for relaying Navy history and technology to our community and fostering the public’s engagement with technological concepts. Throughout 2018, education programs, including Discover Engineering (“E”) Day and Navy STEM Days, continued to draw people to the museum to engage with the science and technology that allows the Navy to operate 3
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