Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Discovering the MotorCities National Heritage Area: Where America’s Automotive Story Lives

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Discovering the MotorCities National Heritage Area: Where America’s Automotive Story Lives · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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Break fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
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all over the auto sphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
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designers, and everything in between.
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Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrol heads that wonder.
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How did they get that job or become that person?
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The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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Have you ever found yourself on a long road trip cruising down the highway
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and wondered what those brown signs along the roadside are all about?
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Or maybe you say to yourself, I wish I had more time to stop and check that out.
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Well, if you happen to be in the Detroit metropolitan area anytime soon, you need
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to take that off ramp and check out the Motor City's National Heritage Area, where
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they tell the stories of how southeast and central Michigan put the world on wheels.
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And with us tonight is Director of Communications and Engagement
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Bob Sadler to explain why taking this particular detour needs to be
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part of your upcoming travel plans.
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And with that, welcome to BreakFix, Bob.
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Hey, great.
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It's great to be on and looking forward to it.
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Well, like all good BreakFix stories, there's a superhero origin.
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But in this case, we're talking about something a little less tangible.
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We're talking about a national heritage area.
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So, like we said in the intro, many of us have seen these signs and maybe
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oftentimes are clouded by the need to pull off where the blue signs take us.
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But let's talk about what these brown signs are all about.
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And first off, what is a National Heritage Area?
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A National Heritage Area, it's a really interesting concept because we are
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actually at Motor City's National Heritage Area part of What the National Park
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Service refers to as a national heritage area system, there's specific themes or
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industries or geographic features in the country that in the case of Michigan.
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Ours is the automobile.
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We are the part of the world that put America on wheels
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and put the world on wheels.
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Our National Heritage Area is devoted specifically to our country's
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automotive and labor heritage.
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We are all about those tinkerers that became titans and the working people
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that became part of a middle class.
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And all those stories that came together in this unique place with unique
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natural resources, unique geography, surrounded by the Great Lakes, and
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it created all of the right stuff.
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All in one place to make the automobile what it became.
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So we have the credibility and prestige that comes with being part
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of the National Park Service, but National Heritage areas, each in
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their own way are completely unique.
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There are actually 62 different National Heritage areas around the United States.
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Motor City's National Heritage Area happens to be the only one
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currently in the state of Michigan.
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So a National Heritage Area as part of the National Park Service, if we think about
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it maybe from a perspective that we're familiar with, if any of us go camping
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or you've been to a state park or one of the state preserves, things like that, Is
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there a sense of preservation here too?
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Is a national heritage area a protected area?
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We work specifically in a number of areas, but one of the things that
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we try to do is to preserve the automotive heritage and labor heritage.
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So there is a preservation element of certain historic sites that were relevant
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to the creation of the automobile.
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The moving assembly line, you know, all those kinds of places that were
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involved in the creation of the U.
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A.
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W.
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1 key aspect of our mission is revitalization and preservation.
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Motor cities gives out grants.
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We're involved in helping preserve key automotive sites,
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whether they're old factories.
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Whether they're homes of auto barons, there's a number of
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different kinds of sites.
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Sites that were relevant to the creation of the United Auto Workers
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and organized labor in Michigan around the automotive industry.
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We have a three pronged mission where preservation and
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revitalization is one aspect of that.
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And then we also are involved in education and interpretation of telling that story.
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And then the third prong is heritage tourism, where we are literally
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promoting and marketing this area of lower Michigan as a tourist destination
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for people who are interested in the story of how this state put the
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world on wheels, almost acting like a destination marketing organization, like
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a convention bureau or a tourism bureau.
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So there had to be a catalyst or an inflection point that said, you know
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what, we need to preserve some of these old factories in these buildings,
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like you said, and some have been lost to time where the city has changed.
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The city has evolved.
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Somebody stood up and said, Hey, hey, stop, stop.
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This is part of our legacy.
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This is what makes Detroit an amazing part of the history of the world.
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As you're saying, when did the Motor City's National Heritage Area get started?
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The National Heritage Area movement actually started in the late 80s.
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The first one dates back to the Reagan administration.
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The idea that became Motor City's National Heritage Area started out in the 1990s.
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And so in the 90s, National Heritage Areas were still kind of a new idea.
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There were people in Michigan who thought the automotive industry might be
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a really good match with this concept.
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There were a number of folks, a kind of a coalition that crossed
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education, key museums and historic sites, the state historical museum,
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a number of places came together.
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And so the idea of creating a national heritage area in Michigan
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around automotive and labor heritage started to gather momentum.
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All of the national heritage areas.
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Need to be approved by acts of Congress and then signed by the president.
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We had a champion in the United States House of Representatives in
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the late Congressman John Dingell, who was a longtime Detroit area
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congressman in November of 1998.
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The bill creating the Automobile National Heritage Area was
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signed by President Bill Clinton.
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And again, it was championed by John Dingell in the House, the late Senator
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Carl Levin in the Senate, and November 6, 1998, what we now know as Motor
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City's National Heritage Area was born.
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So Bob, being a small, non for profit organization, how did
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you get involved with the Motor City's National Heritage Area?
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I actually have devoted most of my career Two nonprofit organizations.
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I actually spent 18 years at the Detroit Historical Society
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prior to joining Motor Cities.
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So I was actually at the Detroit Historical Museum, which is why
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I'm able to talk so much about the specifics of the automotive exhibits
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and, and stuff in the collection there.
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So I was there for 18 years and I joined Motor Cities in 2017.
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So I've actually been at Motor Cities now for almost seven years.
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So I've been steeped in history, just have delved into the automotive
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part of our history even more in the time since I've joined Motor Cities.
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So were you a petrolhead by birth or were you birthed into becoming a petrolhead?
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I would say I was not a petrolhead from birth.
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We actually, uh, was, uh, born and raised in the Cleveland area, where
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I tell you one thing, if Winton had beaten Henry Ford in that race that the
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two of them had around 1900 or so, I can't remember the exact date, but if
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Henry Ford hadn't beaten Winton in that race, Cleveland would be the automotive
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capital of the world and not Detroit.
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Going back to the people that started the initiative back in the 90s,
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do you think they were inspired by folks like Henry Ford and what
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he did with Greenfield Village?
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Because that was a concept of preserving history as well, where he brought in
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things like Edison's lab into that environment, and that still exists today.
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Is that also part of the National Heritage Area?
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I'm sure that both his story and his aura Is definitely present in the creation of
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Motor City's National Heritage Area, the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village.
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They have a rouge factory tour.
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The story of Henry Ford actually crosses a number of our partner
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organizations and attractions.
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I was noticing on the website, there's actually a list of where you get
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notified when you're on a road trip that you're entering the National
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Heritage Area or you're approaching it.
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To kind of map it out, how big is the footprint of the Motor
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City's National Heritage Area?
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The actual footprint covers over 10, 000 square miles, so it's a pretty good
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chunk of the lower peninsula of Michigan.
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It translates out to 16 different counties.
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And a population, more than 6 million people.
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So it's a pretty substantial portion of Michigan and it's
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Motor Cities for a reason.
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It's not just Detroit.
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Most people will think Motown.
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But it is Motor Cities because the National Heritage Area also includes
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Flint, the birthplace of General Motors.
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the capital area around Lansing, which is the origins of RE Olds and Oldsmobile,
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and goes still further west to include Kalamazoo and Kalamazoo County,
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where they manufactured yellow cabs.
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Kalamazoo County is the home of the largest automotive museum in North
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America, that is the Gilmore Car Museum.
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And those brown signs, by the way, those are normally affiliated with
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Parks or national parks, or in our case, the National Park Service
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or National Heritage Area System.
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So when you see a brown sign, you generally know that it has something to
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do with a park, local or state parks.
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In our case, of course, the National Park Service arrowhead is included
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on our signs to show our linkage with the National Park Service.
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And there's currently 14 of those signs in our national heritage area.
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We hope to have more of them.
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We actually want to more than double those to about 30 signs.
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How many sites are there in total?
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When we first did a census back when the organization was being
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created, they came up with as many as 10, 000 different sites.
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Wow.
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Now, not all of them exist anymore.
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And we also have a network of what we call wayside signs, where there are small signs
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held up with posts in various communities around the National Heritage Area.
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They help tell the story of different sites.
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Sometimes stuff is still there.
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Sometimes it's telling a story that is now completely invisible
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to the public that you have to see the sign and read the story there.
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And there's 300 more of those.
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So those brown signs, you know, now entering the Motor City's
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National Heritage Area, they sort of demarcate the boundary, but how
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do you know where to go from there?
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Are there guides on the website that says, hey, if you're in this county or you're
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in this place, these are the top 10 places to check out along I 75 or whatever it is.
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How do you guys organize all this to make it easier for those of us that
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want to travel and check it out?
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The idea behind the signs is, either points of entry into the National Heritage
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Area, also to try to strategically place them around where there are clusters
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of a lot of our partner organizations, attractions, historic sites.
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Around Detroit, you'll find them when you enter from Canada via
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one of the bridges or the tunnel.
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On I 75, you'll find a number of them both on the north and south entry points
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to the National Heritage Area, and you'll find a number of them along Interstate 94.
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Around towns like Ypsilanti or Lansing and the Kalamazoo area.
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And then we actually have a find your road trip, interactive map.
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Our website has a number of ways that you can do that where organizations
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are how people can find their way.
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Uh, there's a pull down menu where you can go by community.
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You can go by You know, there's a number of ways that you can create your
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own itinerary and you can kind of mix and match right there on the website.
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Another way we can do it is by stopping at one of our partner attractions
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and grabbing our passport guide.
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And the passport guide is kind of patterned.
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After the National Park Service passports, you know, you have seen
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those blue passports that look like your actual travel passport, but
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in the National Park Service case, you can take those to National
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Parks and you can get them stamped.
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You can chronicle your travels.
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And so, in a similar manner, we have our own Motor Cities passport.
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We have about 25 different partner attractions that are listed in our
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passport book, and you can pick them up at any 1 of our attractions.
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They're outfitted with their stamps, then you can get started and
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collecting stamps at as many of them as you're interested in visiting.
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And there's a map inside the passport book as well, so you can track where you
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are and where you might want to go next.
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If you were planning a route for yourself, which I'm sure you've done many times
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before, what would you say are maybe top five places that people should visit?
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Oh, I wish you wouldn't have said five.
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All right, top ten then.
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Well, I'll tell you, I have more than a few.
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I'd like to break them out geographically.
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If you're in the city of Detroit, there's more than one.
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You want to stop at the Ford Paquette Plant Museum, which is
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the birthplace of the Model T.
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And it was the factory that most of the early Alphabet cars were made.
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were created and where the Model T was first conceived and was first made
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until they outgrew it and then they moved on to the Highland Park plant.
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And the Highland Park plant, of course, was the one that was famous for being
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the place where Ford perfected his moving assembly line and was able
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to produce Model T's You know, one every 30 minutes, but it was created
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initially at this picket Avenue facility.
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And that particular place is, you know, almost a poster child for what motor
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cities can do a success story of things.
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And it was a handful of people who were enthusiastic about
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Henry Ford and his story.
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Took this building, which was falling into disrepair and had a couple tenants,
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but it was not even involved in the auto industry in any way anymore.
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And over time purchased parts of the building until they owned
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the entire building and then started undertaking renovations.
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To the building to create a museum and over time, they have managed to
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pull together enough resources that, you know, they're open as a museum.
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They get 30 to 40, 000 visitors a year.
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They have 1 of the few collections of the alphabet cars all in 1 place and
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they have the most amazing tour guides.
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that can really bring the story to life.
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And you can see Henry Ford's office.
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And you can see the so called secret room where he and his engineers and partners
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literally, in a closed off corner of this building, conceived the idea that
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became the car that became the Model T, the car built for the masses, the car
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that literally put the world on wheels.
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That's in Detroit.
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You got the Ford Paquette Plant Museum, and not far from there, the Detroit
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Institute of Arts has the amazing Diego Rivera murals, which were created in the
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1930s, featuring the Ford Rouge plant.
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Which was the outgrowth from the Highland Park plant.
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So, if we follow chronologically, the Rouge was the industrial behemoth born
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of the success of Ford at Highland Park.
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They made Model Ts up through the late 20s.
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The Rouge was the next plant in the Ford's progression and was where the Model A
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that succeeded the T, which was actually the second Model A that Ford produced.
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The Rouge is that site.
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And so the Diego Rivera murals were this, it's, it's, it's hard to describe
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because it literally is four walls that surround you, a lot of symbolism
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there about the workers and the entrepreneurs, the leadership, Diego
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Rivera had a political point of view.
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There's his take on matters, but there's allegory and there's.
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There's seedlings and there's babies growing from, you know, and there's
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all kinds of interesting imagery that goes to this industrial behemoth
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that makes these vehicles, you know, it's, it's an amazing piece of art.
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It certainly is one of the signature attractions when you visit Detroit.
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Kiddie corner across the street from the Detroit Institute of Arts is the Detroit
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Historical Museum, which has a exhibit inside called America's Motor City.
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You can see a replica of the first car that drove the streets of Detroit, beat
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Ford's quadricycle by a few months.
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It was Charles Brady King in March of 1896.
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And you can see that you can see a portion of the moving assembly line
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from the Cadillac Clark Avenue plant, and you can see a whole lot of the
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automotive industry history as it was in the city of Detroit in that museum.
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So there's kind of a big 3 in the city of Detroit, all very close by,
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you'd move out to Dearborn about 15 minutes from downtown Detroit.
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And you have the Henry Ford, which is the Henry Ford Museum of
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American Innovation, which has.
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Multiple exhibits on the automobile, they have the automobile in American
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life, they have a racing exhibit now and Greenfield village, of course, that you've
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mentioned, you know, which features not just automotive, but the Wright brothers
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and Thomas Edison and all these amazing American inventors and innovators, you
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know, the people who literally shaped our culture, shaped our industry.
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Are responsible for where we are in the world today.
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A stone's throw on the northern part of their parking lot is the
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automotive hall of fame, which tells the story of the people that made
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the international auto industry.
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The auto hall of fame is unique in the sense that it's not just about
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the American automobile industry.
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It's literally about the worldwide automobile industry and telling stories
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through the eyes of the people that have made vehicles and have been responsible
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for mobility over the 130 plus years.
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You can go down the road to Ypsilanti, where there's the Ypsilanti
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Automotive Heritage Museum, which was in an old Hudson dealership.
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One of the last Hudson dealerships is now a museum.
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A stone's throw from there is the Michigan Firehouse Museum, which has an amazing
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collection of fire apparatus, which were produced by the auto industry.
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You go up US 23 from the Ypsilanti area and you get to Flint, the
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birthplace of General Motors.
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And there's an amazing museum up there known as the Sloan Museum of
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Discovery, which has an amazing gallery named for Billy Durant, who was the
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founder of General Motors, one of the founders of Buick prior to that.
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You can see the history of the automotive industry through a General Motors lens.
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You proceed west from Flint, and you can get to Lansing, where you can
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see where Ransom Olds held court.
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There's the R.
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E.
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Olds Transportation Museum in Lansing.
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You get that story of Oldsmobile, and the R.
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E.
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O.
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brand, and the various vehicles that were made in the Lansing area.
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Again, you keep going further west, and you get to Kalamazoo, as I
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mentioned, where they made yellow cabs right through the 1980s.
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And the Gilmore Car Museum, which is a fantastic place, very similar in
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the sense to the Henry Ford, where it's a campus and there are multiple
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museums all in one place where you can see the collection of Mr.
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Gilmore, who was a CEO of Upjohn Pharmaceuticals and his wife's
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family were the people who founded that particular company.
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And as he amassed wealth and was collecting cars, his wife said at some
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point when there just became too many cars in their garage and around their
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property, she told him, you need to just put a museum together for this.
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That's how the Gilmore Car Museum came to be.
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There's just so much.
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It's hard to put it into a top 5 or even a top 10.
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You need our passport book so you can see 25 different places that you can visit.
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And if you use the map on the website, you can find even more.
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I think we take signs for granted.
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There's so many of them that we have to read and kind of process, especially
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in a hurry when we're driving down the road, you know, there's even a
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science to signage and there's a signage museum and all this, but you hear these
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stories, you know, my dad took me to this place when I was a kid, and, oh, if
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we didn't read every sign in the place.
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Jokingly, we all look back on that, because we're all kids at some point.
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We're like, ah, you know, that was, it was such a march that we had
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to go through on these vacations.
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I've noticed that on the website, there's a junior rangers program as
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part of the National Heritage Area.
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How have you guys designed that program to make these sorts of trips a
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little bit more exciting Petrelheads?
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The junior ranger program, it's inspired by and part derived from
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a junior ranger program that exists within the national park service.
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And it's a relatively recent creation for us.
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We wanted to create something that incentivized.
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Families and children to learn more about the automobile industry and the stories
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that are told here in our 16 counties of Michigan and learn very specifically
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about auto barons and the labor story and all of those kinds of things.
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There was a number of years that it took to kind of develop the program
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and then the pandemic happened.
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The Junior Ranger program as it currently sits, if you go to MotorCities.
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org and you see the menu at the top of the home page, you'll see Junior Ranger
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and when you click on it, it's basically almost entirely a virtual program.
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It's the idea of looking at a map and figuring out what cool things
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or what cool stories are on the map.
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Right now you click on videos and you watch videos and things.
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We're going to definitely add a second phase to the junior ranger program.
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We're going to work on it in league with our partners and our various
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attractions to make it more hands on and allow for people to travel from
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site to site attraction to attraction.
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And have specific things that they can do or they can look for at those sites,
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but as it is right now, it's still kind of more of a virtual program and it
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has a number of different activities and things that children can do.
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There's a part of activities that are geared toward 5 to 7.
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there's 8 to 10 and then there's age 11 plus.
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And if you do a certain number of activities and complete them and then
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show us proof that you completed them, then we can send you a badge that you are
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an official Motor City's Junior Ranger.
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I noticed that the Motor City's National Heritage Area has various
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grants and outreach programs.
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Let's talk a little bit about those.
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How do they work and who do they benefit?
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Grants are a big part of our mission.
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We received the majority of our funding through the National Park Service
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and therefore the Department of the Interior and the federal government.
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We have to be good stewards of the government's resources.
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We actually have a grant program.
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There's two different kinds of grants.
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One is a challenge grant, which are up to 25, 000, and then there's
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also a mini grant program for smaller projects up to 1, 500.
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We have kind of a rolling application process where each quarter we accept
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new applications as the funding each year allows much like the mission that
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I mentioned earlier with revitalization interpretation and education and
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heritage tourism, we give priority to projects that fall under those 3 areas.
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And then we also like to give a preference to projects that
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exemplify diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility as well.
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Grants can be anything from construction related projects.
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Like I said, we helped the Ford plant museum over the years.
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With parts of their renovations from fixing a very large roof to having an
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HVAC system added to their building.
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Recently, the Gilmore Car Museum received a grant for a new visitor orientation
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and event pavilion, which is outside.
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They host a number of events that are outdoors.
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Cruise nights and concerts and, and all kinds of different events
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and that particular grant will help them to have a key place to convene
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tour groups and special events.
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You know, we've also done grants that have helped fund things like documentary films.
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There was a recent documentary film called Detroit City of Hot Rods and Muscle Cars.
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It talked in great depth about the car culture of Detroit, which is even within
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the town that put the world on wheels.
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You know, we also have a very unique car culture.
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There's a lot of gearheads and people that tinker in their
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basements with their classics and they take them out during the week.
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They go to cruise nights and on the weekends throughout the
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summer, there's big cruises all over the state of Michigan.
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This film kind of looks at that through many different eyes.
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Including women involved in it, disabled people involved with it, Vietnam
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vets, just lots of different stories of people and their cars and how it
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becomes part of this interwoven into this fabric of this Detroit car culture.
25:41
So, the grants are kind of all over, but they're in those 3 key mission areas.
25:46
And then we also have a variety of programs.
25:49
That include things like we were part of a coalition of organizations that built
25:54
a park at the site where in 1932, two and a half years into the Great Depression.
25:59
At that point, workers at Ford Motor Company convened and marched through
26:03
Detroit into Dearborn to the Rouge plant.
26:07
With a list of demands for Henry Ford, mostly around working
26:10
conditions and fair wages.
26:13
There was a lot of suffering in the worker community.
26:16
This march turned out to be a seminal moment in the creation of the UAW.
26:21
They clashed with Dearborn police and Ford security forces.
26:25
Five workers were killed.
26:27
And dozens were injured.
26:29
We worked with a number of organizations and actually created a park in a
26:33
very underserved part of Southwest Detroit that not just tells the story,
26:38
but also creates a place kind of a haven for people in the neighborhood.
26:43
To enjoy a park, those kinds of things are part of the mission as well.
26:48
And what I love about this is that it's not all about the
26:51
travel and the historical sites.
26:53
It's really the significance of the Motor City's National Heritage Area.
26:56
And what I came to really appreciate in understanding more about your
27:00
organization is the time you guys take to elaborate on these stories.
27:05
And you have three different sections on the website.
27:08
You've got many voices, one story, making tracks.
27:12
And then the story of the week.
27:13
God bless whoever's writing all these things or maybe you're
27:15
working with, you know, the society of automotive historians.
27:18
I don't know where you guys find the time, but there's just this treasure
27:21
trove of information on the website.
27:23
I hope that we can express to people that it's more than just
27:26
planning your next road trip.
27:27
It's checking out these stories and becoming more involved in
27:30
the intimate backgrounds of these people's lives and how it really
27:33
changed the face of the world.
27:34
I'm glad you brought those up many voices.
27:37
One story is our homage to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the sense
27:43
that we tell stories that are undertold focusing on our minority communities.
27:48
So there are stories about the black experience in the automotive industry.
27:51
There's stories about Hispanic and Latino people in the automotive industry.
27:56
There's stories that relate to people with disabilities.
27:59
Obviously, you became familiar with the story of Ralph Teeter with the
28:02
premiere of the Blind Logic film at the Automotive Hall of Fame recently.
28:06
That's an amazing story.
28:07
Before I even learned of the documentary, I had actually, myself, had become
28:11
familiar with the story of Ralph Teeter.
28:13
And Ralph Teeter's story is one of the stories that we tell.
28:16
And this Many Voices, One Story part of our website.
28:19
There's stories about people with autism.
28:22
There's a young driver trying to make his way through NASCAR, who is
28:26
autistic, that's from the Detroit area.
28:28
He's a young African American and he's autistic.
28:31
He has a unique set of challenges as he's moving up through the
28:34
ranks as a race car driver.
28:36
I had the opportunity to interview him and to talk about his story and his
28:40
unique perspective and you just can't help but root for someone like that.
28:44
There's stories that just come from so many different places that
28:47
are in that particular section.
28:49
You Then we have making tracks, which is specifically devoted to the African
28:54
American experience in the automotive industry that tells over a century
28:58
of stories that a lot of the African American stories in the auto industry have
29:02
their origins with Henry Ford's 5 day.
29:06
Which was announced in January of 1914, he revolutionized the industry
29:11
by saying he was going to more than double the salary of the workers,
29:16
because it was very difficult work.
29:19
It was dangerous.
29:19
It was hot and the turnover of employees.
29:23
Was just ridiculous.
29:24
He wanted to deal with that aspect of the turnover part by countering
29:29
it by saying, if you can meet these criteria, you can make 5 a day for
29:35
your work in our automotive plants.
29:38
And this sparked a migration of folks from the American South and from Eastern Europe
29:43
and from Africa and the Middle East.
29:45
It completely changed Detroit over a 15 year period from 1914
29:50
to the stock market crash in 29.
29:52
Detroit grew unlike any city in the country ever has or frankly ever will.
29:58
That was a big story and the African American experience
30:01
was a key part of that.
30:03
So making tracks Starts with that migration, and then it gets into
30:07
organized labor and how leadership within the African American community grew
30:12
into the civil rights movement after World War Two, then there's stories
30:17
about the advancements and firsts of African Americans in the industry.
30:22
First professional engineers and first African American automotive
30:27
manufacturing by companies that were owned by African Americans.
30:30
The first African American to have a car dealership that was affiliated
30:34
with one of the big three, all those kinds of stories you'll find in the
30:37
making track section of motorcities.
30:40
org.
30:41
And then what I affectionately refer to as the franchise,
30:44
which is the story of the week.
30:46
I guess you could call it a weekly blog.
30:48
New one comes out every Wednesday.
30:50
It is distributed through an e newsletter that we put out.
30:54
It's free.
30:55
It's called You Ought to Know.
30:57
Hits your inbox every Wednesday and the franchise within that
31:01
is our weekly story of the week.
31:03
These are all over the place.
31:04
They're basically different stories about some aspect of the automotive
31:09
industry, whether it's firsts, whether it's specific models, stories of
31:14
people, it really runs the gamut.
31:16
Today's story of the week, for example, was about Steve McQueen, the actor, and
31:22
his automotive collection, and how he channeled driving the famous Bullitt
31:26
Mustang in the movie Bullitt in the chase scene that everyone can remember, and also
31:31
being a race car driver on the side and appearing in the movie Le Mans in the 70s.
31:37
Not only was he an actor and he, he drove in, in his, in the movies, but he also
31:41
built a collection over his lifetime.
31:44
Unfortunately, it's life was cut pretty short 1980, only 50 years old when
31:49
he passed away, but he did accumulate a pretty amazing collection of both.
31:53
American and foreign cars.
31:56
And so today's story of the week is about Steve McQueen and his collection.
31:59
It really runs all over the place and it's put out in the e newsletter every
32:03
week, and then it also is a big part of our social media because we talk
32:08
about the story of the week and our social media close to the weekends.
32:11
We have our weekend alert posts, which.
32:13
Flag down specific events and things that are going on in
32:16
the national heritage area.
32:17
Every weekend during the summer, there are many, many, many events going on.
32:21
The story of the week is always pretty fun.
32:23
More than anything that we've done over the years.
32:27
It's driven the growth of our website, the growth of our social media.
32:31
Look for it every Wednesday.
32:32
You also mentioned that your funding in some ways comes from the National
32:36
Park Service and the Department of Interior and things like that.
32:38
But also there's an opportunity for us.
32:41
petrol heads to become involved in the Motor City's National
32:44
Heritage Area and support the cause.
32:46
And so on the website there's a donation page, you become a
32:49
member, all these kinds of things.
32:51
Is becoming a member of the Motor City's National Heritage Area limited to just
32:56
Michiganders or can anybody sign up?
32:58
What are the benefits of becoming a member?
33:00
Are there different levels or tiers of membership?
33:03
Can you like break that all down for us?
33:05
Absolutely.
33:06
The answer in terms of is it limited to Michiganders?
33:08
And the answer to that is absolutely not.
33:11
Anybody can become a member of Motor City's National Heritage Area.
33:15
Obviously, in most cases, a lot of the benefits are tied to things you
33:19
can find within the state of Michigan and with our partner attractions.
33:23
But individual membership starts as low as 30 for an individual family
33:28
memberships are 65 and then there's some higher levels that go up to 500.
33:32
but in terms of the benefits, there are 15 of our partner attractions
33:37
that offer either admission discounts.
33:40
Museum or gift shop discounts, membership discounts.
33:43
There's a variety of discounts that are available to people.
33:46
If you actually used a couple of them, you'd actually more than pay for the
33:50
amount you paid for the membership.
33:51
You know, someone who wasn't from the state of Michigan conceivably,
33:55
if they were planning a trip to the national heritage area,
33:58
they could buy a membership.
34:00
And if they visited two or three or even more of our attractions and
34:04
use their membership card, they can earn some significant discounts.
34:08
There's also an organizational membership.
34:10
If you have a, an organization that is about automotive heritage, or
34:14
it's about local history, people can also become organizational
34:18
members at different levels.
34:20
And the benefits of that are that, you know, you can be featured in our social
34:25
media, our e newsletters, on our website.
34:28
You can apply for our grants.
34:29
Now that would be more for people within our organizations in the state
34:33
of Michigan, but you get recognized as being a partner in all the stories that
34:38
we tell as an organizational member.
34:40
It's definitely not limited to people within the state of Michigan.
34:43
Plus, to be honest, a lot of the people that are our supporters.
34:46
That become our members, they're not doing it because they're looking
34:50
for five bucks off admission.
34:52
They're doing it because they care about the stories we're telling.
34:56
They do it because we're doing something important that our mission of keeping
35:01
those stories alive, getting those stories to as many people as possible
35:06
and sharing that auto and labor heritage.
35:08
Those are the people that they're going to want to support us.
35:11
Regardless of what benefits it entails, our social media, our Facebook, we have
35:16
26, 000 followers on our Facebook page.
35:19
It goes all over the country and around the world, Europe and Africa
35:24
and Middle East and South America and beyond that are liking our posts and
35:28
making comments and sharing their own stories or angles on some of these
35:34
Detroit, Michigan focused stories.
35:36
You know, it's become an amazing way to connect with people.
35:40
Well, it sounds like you guys have come up with a great way to diversify and augment
35:45
the funding that you have, keep people involved, but not all of it is necessarily
35:50
digital or just on the website.
35:52
You guys have got other events and ways to interact with the Motor
35:56
City's National Heritage Area, right?
35:58
We do have some special events each year around our auto heritage.
36:02
We created something about 10 years ago called Michigan Auto Heritage Day.
36:06
Which is something that we do in conjunction with our state government,
36:10
the state legislature and the governor's office, where they declare it Michigan
36:14
auto heritage day, gives us an opportunity to share some different
36:17
stories and get some visibility around motor cities and our mission.
36:22
And what we do, we have other programs where we talk about telling
36:26
the story, the interpretation.
36:28
We have a speakers Bureau where we have speakers that go out to speak.
36:33
To local historical societies, they go to libraries, they have a variety of
36:38
topics from the people that made the auto industry, the different entrepreneurs,
36:42
their stories about Rosie the Riveter and world war two and willow run and
36:48
many aspects of the life of Henry Ford or Walter Chrysler or Billy Durant
36:53
and the creation of General Motors.
36:55
We also work with our peers and our contemporaries that work with our
36:59
partners and we do lunch and learn type programs where we try to pick an
37:03
aspect that might help them do their job better or easier, more efficiently.
37:07
We also have awards of excellence that we hand out focusing around those key areas.
37:12
of education, interpretation, revitalization, and tourism.
37:16
We try to put a spotlight on the work of key partners and individuals who are doing
37:22
amazing work and keeping this story alive.
37:25
All right, so Bob, what's next for the Motor City's National Heritage Area?
37:29
What's the two, five, ten year plan look like?
37:32
Well, it's a really interesting question because we've just completed our
37:36
most recent strategic plan, which is going to cover the next 2 or 3 years.
37:40
You know, we're looking at a lot of things in terms of our partnerships
37:45
with the various attractions and museums and organizations,
37:48
international heritage area, as well as ways forward on many fronts.
37:53
So we've done a lot of inward looking, we've done a lot of sit
37:58
downs and surveyed our members.
38:02
And it'll be interesting to see how we're starting to flesh that strategic plan out.
38:07
And we're starting to create specific tactics and plans attached to it.
38:11
Some of the stuff is happening behind the scenes and is going to be tied
38:16
to funding and discussions that we're having at the state level.
38:20
But there are going to be a number of things that are going to be happening.
38:23
We did recently receive a grant through the national park foundation that is
38:27
tied to the upcoming 250th birthday of the country, an inclusive storytelling
38:34
grant, and we're going to be doing even more work segueing on what we've
38:38
already been doing with many voices, one story and making tracks and finding
38:43
a lot of those lesser known stories.
38:46
That are tied to themes that are among the foci of the 250th birthday of the country.
38:52
We're starting to roll that out right now, and that's going to be happening,
38:55
you know, over the next nine to 12 months, there'll be a number of
38:59
public events and things around that.
39:01
Suffice it to say, there's going to be a lot going on leading up to 2026.
39:05
And there's going to be a lot of things specific around.
39:09
New initiatives and new ways to share these unique auto and
39:13
labor heritage stories for being a three person organization.
39:18
We're a small, but mighty nonprofit that does a heck of
39:21
a lot and has a great impact.
39:23
You know, we actually say that each year, the programs and the grants
39:28
and the things that we do to promote heritage tourism into Michigan
39:32
generates a 489Million dollar economic impact and supports over 5000 jobs.
39:38
Michigan Technological University And generates 40 million in tax revenue.
39:42
Small but mighty.
39:43
So, Bob, we've reached that part of the episode where I'd like to
39:45
invite our guests to share any shoutouts, promotions, or anything
39:48
else that we haven't covered thus far.
39:50
Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing would be, we certainly
39:53
have mentioned the website.
39:54
I do something on our social media.
39:56
That's unique.
39:57
The first year I was at motor cities, I created about 240 this
40:01
day and auto heritage posts.
40:04
And so for most every day of the year, if you go on our social media,
40:08
predominantly our Facebook page, you will find something from our automotive
40:12
history for almost every day of the year.
40:15
And we call it This Day in Auto Heritage.
40:17
If you want to catch little factoids or little morsels of automotive history on
40:21
almost a daily basis, our social media is definitely what you want to follow.
40:26
The hashtag is This Day in Automotive Heritage.
40:28
The Motor City's National Heritage Area links the world's largest collection
40:32
of cultural and labor organizations, museums, archives, factories, auto
40:37
collections, and events to preserve the story of how tinkerers became titans and
40:41
how they helped build the middle class.
40:43
While transforming manufacturing worldwide, the Motor Cities National
40:47
Heritage Area Partnership is a non for profit corporation affiliated
40:51
with the National Park Service.
40:53
They preserve, interpret, and promote the region's rich automotive and labor
40:57
heritage in a way that is diverse.
40:59
Equitable, inclusive, and accessible.
41:02
And you can customize your next trip to the Detroit area or make a
41:06
donation today by logging on to www.
41:09
motorcities.
41:10
org or follow them on social media at Motor Cities on Facebook,
41:15
Instagram, and Twitter along with at Motor Cities NHA on YouTube.
41:21
And with that, Bob, I can't thank you enough for coming on break
41:23
fix and sharing the motor cities, national heritage story with us.
41:27
The saying is you need to take the time to stop and smell the roses.
41:31
But I think in this case, we need to take the time to pull off and check out
41:35
what's connected to those Brown signs.
41:37
Absolutely.
41:38
I'm glad that we were able to do this and I'm hoping that we hit some
41:41
new audiences with this podcast.
41:43
Thanks so much, Eric.
41:49
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