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Susan Curtin - Service, Leadership & the National Coast Guard Museum · She’s Smart

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Hey, everybody. Welcome to She's Smart, and welcome to Season 3.
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Today, we are talking about the United States Coast Guard and the woman helping
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make sure its incredible history finally has a permanent home.
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My guest today is Susan Curtin, chair of the National Coast Guard Museum Association.
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Susan is also a former member of the Coast Guard Reserve, where she served as
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a third-class petty officer in Port Security while earning her degree at the
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College of the Holy Cross.
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Susan's connection to the Coast Guard is deeply personal, and our conversation
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takes us through family, service, leadership, legacy, and the incredible work
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she's doing to help bring the National Coast Guard Museum to life.
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The Coast Guard does far more than search and rescue. We talk about its role
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in law enforcement, environmental protection, national security,
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military conflicts, and why this relatively small service has such an enormous responsibility.
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Underneath all of that is a really wonderful conversation about family and service,
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about honoring where you came from, using what you've been given to help others,
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and what leadership actually looks like when things get difficult.
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So get cozy as we connect, learn, and laugh together on She's Smart.
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Thank you for sitting here with me. Yes, thanks for having me.
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And this is a good time. I really appreciate when Kate sent over the information.
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I had just talked to my 14-year-old about the Coast Guard. Very cool.
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He's at this point really into military and wants to go in that direction.
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He's going to start freshman year this year. So if he wants to do an academy,
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he really has to start now, right? Yes. We're in it.
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And a friend of ours is talking to us about all the different places.
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And she goes, you know what doesn't get any credit and they should is the Coast Guard.
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And I was like, what a segue. Right. She's like, you know what,
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Maria goes. She has two boys as well.
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She's like, I would love one of them to go in the Coast Guard.
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She's like, they might be one of the coolest arm that we have.
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They do the coolest things. I love it. I love it.
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Before we get into the museum, which I think is great. And in fact,
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the other day I got an email that it was just the anniversary of the Coast Guard,
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like a couple of weeks ago. Right. Yeah.
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Coast Guard birthday. Right. Yeah. This is all tying in so well.
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I wanted to start with you. I love to get the story of who's sitting with me
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and where you started to where you are now.
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And reading your bio, first I have to say, in researching this,
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I really know very little about the Coast Guard.
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Well, that's a great segue why we're building this museum. So wonderful. Yeah.
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And I think all of us, all of the listeners are really going to learn today
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exactly what it does and get a little more education on it and appreciation for it, I think, too.
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But you started when you were in Holy Cross, you joined the reserve,
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the Coast Guard Reserve. So yeah, I should probably back up a little.
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So I talk about my family background, because that's really kind of.
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Where the inspiration came from. So I actually grew up in Southern California,
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the baby of four. I'm the youngest. I have three older siblings,
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and I grew up in a family business, which was incredible.
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From my earliest memories, we were all sort of, you know, this family business
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was the fabric of our family, and we watched our parents grow an idea,
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you know, literally from the kitchen table.
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And my parents grew it into an international marketing research firm in the
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span of 40 years. And those early days, we, you know, as young children.
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We really, you know, were witness to the sacrifices our parents made to build this business.
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I should mention it's J.D. Power & Associates. My parents literally started
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it with a second mortgage out on their home in 1968 with, I wasn't born yet,
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but my three siblings were and, you know, all very young children.
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And to think back that my mom had the fortitude to pursue this with my father
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at that point, it's like pretty incredible.
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It says a lot about her character because, you know, at that time,
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you know, you picked a career and usually stayed with the company that you were working for.
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So this was a huge leap of faith and, you know, no straight lines to getting
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there to their success. I mean, it was a lot of curves and bends and sacrifice
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and risk that we all grew up a part of.
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So quickly on my background, how the Coast Guard all happened is my dad actually
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served in the Coast Guard. He graduated from College of the Holy Cross,
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was born and raised in Worcester and had never been. He graduated in 1953 and
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he'd never been on a ship before and he'd never been past the New York border.
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And he was the oldest of four kids. His grandfather was first-gen to go to college,
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and he came from a family of educators, teachers.
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And it was right at the end of the Korean War, and my dad had to figure out what he was going to do.
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And so he knew he wanted to join a service.
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And the first exam he took was with the Coast Guard, and he got accepted and
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went to officer candidate school down in New London, Connecticut. And...
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He had put in, one thing he wanted to do is he wanted to get out of Worcester
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and wanted to get out of where he was from.
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And so he put in for Hawaii, San Diego, and Florida, where he wanted to be stationed out of.
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And he'd get his orders back, and he was actually put on a polar icebreaker
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out of Boston Harbor. So it was like, the thing is sort of, and it's sort of
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legend goes, he was on the East Wind, which was the wind class of polar icebreakers back then.
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And they were these old vintage World War II ships. And it was kind of like
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you did something wrong if that's where you ended up.
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So anyway, you could imagine this young man in his early to mid-20s set sail
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on several missions for the Coast Guard.
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He went up to the Arctic Circle in his first three missions.
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And the Coast Guard at that time was resupplying Loran stations.
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That was the way that we communicated back then. There's no satellite, right?
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So these radiofrequency Lorand stations that were set up all over the world,
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but they went up to the Arctic and were responsible for resupplying those stations,
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as well as the International Ice Patrol, which,
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following the Titanic, we all know that story.
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The Coast Guard became responsible for mapping all the icebergs in the waterways.
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That was part of their mission going up to the Arctic Circle was the International Ice Patrol operations.
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And so he immediately...
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Taken out of Worcester, Massachusetts and thrown into that environment.
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And you can imagine at such a young age and being given the responsibility of
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being a deck watch officer, it was pretty incredible.
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And then he volunteered to stay on board the East Wind and was part of Operation
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Deep Freeze. He was on the very first Operation Deep Freeze,
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which sailed to Antarctica.
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And his polar icebreaker actually led Admiral Byrd from the Navy's expedition
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into McMurdo Sound in Antarctica, where the first scientific station was set up.
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And that mission today is that mission has been carried through since that very first one in 1957.
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And the Coast Guard's responsible for Operation Deep Freeze.
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And so pretty incredible. So I so as a young child.
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My dad had this habit, you know, there was three things he always gave credit
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to for his success. And, you know, one was his Jesuit education at Holy Cross.
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Number two was his time in the Coast Guard. And number three was my mother.
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So, again, he would, I have these early memories, me and my siblings,
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where it was at least twice a year my dad would break out his slide projector
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and run us through all the great adventures he was on on the East Wind.
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And just as a young child, it was such an impression on me
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to see my dad go into these foreign places and
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the difficulties they had to overcome and how he was thrown into this leadership
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position at such a young age and truly expeditionary, sailing on this small
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polar icebreaker to Antarctica.
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And at one point, the hull of their ship was severely damaged by an iceberg.
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And so they had to end up going into dry duck in New Zealand and were stuck
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in New Zealand for a month. and how he had to keep his crew out of trouble during
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that time and sailing through the Samoa Islands, Panama Canal.
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And so this just was like an opportunity for my dad to see that there was a
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whole world out there and just kind of opened up his aperture.
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And to quickly finish that story, his commanding officer, you know,
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he had spent close to three and a half years at this point and he was trying
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to figure out what was next.
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And he was sort of counseled out of the Coast Guard because he was very much
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a contrarian thinker and was kind of told, you ask too many of the hard questions.
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This isn't a place for you to have a career.
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You know, and so my father was sort of like, what am I going to do next?
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And he was sort of given some advice to go get his MBA.
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And my dad was like, what's that? So he started looking into it.
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And it was the GI Bill that he earned from his service that ended up paying
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for his master's program. And he ended up at Wharton.
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And then that led to getting a job with Ford Tractor and sending him up to Detroit.
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That was his entry into the car business, which kind of eventually led to the
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founding of our family business and the market research side of it.
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So as a young child, you can see some threads here of the impact that my father had on me.
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I transferred to Holy Cross my sophomore year. Up until that point,
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I was a recruited D1 athlete, played Division I golf at B1. Wow,
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okay. My freshman year, a pretty good Catholic, did not make a very good Mormon.
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And we kind of parted. After my freshman year, I think the university and myself
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came to the conclusion that it was probably not the best place for me to be.
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I loved the golf experience, made some great friends. I had a great coach,
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but I probably wasn't going to get through four years there unscathed.
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So I ended up leaving and then had to figure out what I was going to do next.
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And realized that a school of 30,000 undergrads and freshman classes of 800
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students was really not the best learning environment for me.
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My dad took me on a business trip to the East Coast. We started in DC,
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came up all the way up the East Coast, looking at colleges along the way.
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And he tactfully ended with the visit to Holy Cross.
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And, you know, I fell in love with it. And it was a great decision for me to
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move all the way from Southern California to Worcester and start that next chapter for myself.
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So when I arrived at Holy Cross, I then realized like, okay,
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they don't have a women's golf team.
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I've always, you know, golf has been my life. What am I going to do to fill my time?
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And I ended up kind of researching the Coast Guard, unbeknownst to my father, actually.
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And I ended up enlisting in a program for college students and did all my active duty in the summers.
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And then did an extended A school my senior year. So I took fall semester off
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and finished my A school and then came back and graduated in that May.
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And I was a port security specialist in the reserve.
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So what is a port security specialist? So it's no longer a current rate within
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the Coast Guard, but the work we did is actually handled by other parts of the Coast Guard now.
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It was the early 90s, right after Exxon Valdez. Okay.
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The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was passed and Coast Guard created this rate called
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Port Security Specialists. So we were basically the easy way to explain it is
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we were environmental police officers.
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And so I didn't spend a lot of time on the water, but,
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I did spend a lot of time up and down the New England coast responding to oil spills, people,
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pouring bad things into the water, standing watch on the LNG tankers coming
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into Boston Harbor, enforcing the code of federal legislation.
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Regulations on our waterways. There is this port security units that still exist
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today in the Coast Guard Reserve.
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And those have become more tactical, special sort of operation type units that
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can be taken anywhere in the world, actually, to respond to conflicts or wherever they're needed.
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So can you, since we're now at say we need to actual Coast Guard, can you give us a.
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101 of the Coast Guard? What is its role? What makes it different from other
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branches of the military?
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And what it kind of looked like for you becoming an officer in that,
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right? Because you had... Well, I was an enlisted member.
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So yeah. And that actually is a funny anecdote with my father,
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because when I told him I had enlisted, because he went through officer candidate
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school on the grounds of the academy.
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He's like, do you have any idea what you're doing going in as an enlisted member?
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I was like, yes, I know what I'm doing.
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So I shipped off to Cape Bay, New Jersey. and went through my eight weeks of
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boot camp, and then went to my A school in Yorktown, Virginia.
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But to answer your question, Coast Guard 101, the Coast Guard is considered
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a military branch of the United States.
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However, it does not fall under
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the Department of Defense. It falls under Department of Homeland Security.
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Oh, yes. Yes. So, and we are not, you know, the job of the Coast Guard is not
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only to, you know, you know, it's very much known to be the service of,
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it's most well known for search and rescue, right?
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Like, that's kind of what everybody thinks about the Coast Guard.
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But that's just one part of the 11 missions that the Coast Guard carries out
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on a daily basis. So if you think about.
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We're also the only service that is law enforcement, so we're an enforcement
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agency, hence why we fall under Department of Homeland Security.
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But if you think about every inch of the coastline, every port,
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every waterway, the Coast Guard's responsible for
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port security, meaning the safe passage of maritime commerce in and out of our
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ports and waterways, responsible for ensuring safe navigational aids.
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So, right? So all the navigational aids that are in the water are monitored
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and set by the Coast Guard.
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Back to marine safety, Coast Guard has an environmental mission to make sure
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that people are not doing bad things to the water, right, and enforcing that.
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Drug enforcement. The Coast Guard apprehends more illegal drugs and narcotics
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than all the other agencies combined on an annual basis, which most people don't realize.
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We are obviously involved through DHS in the migrant situation.
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If you talk to many of The members of my board at the Museum Association,
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who've been lifelong coasties, many served on cutters and were involved in,
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the Haiti crisis in the 90s, that here we are seeing all this stuff happen all over again.
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But I view it as very humanitarian. These people are risking their lives trying
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to get to this country, and the Coast Guard often intervenes in saving people
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from not making the passage. I think that's very important to note.
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Back to the search and rescue. Obviously, what the Coast Guard is most well-known
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for is search and rescue. And that's where we get many of our hits in the media.
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But think about that. You know, the Coast Guard goes out in the worst weather,
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whether it's saving commercial fishermen, recreational boaters,
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the list goes on. They are responsible for saving lives. When nobody wants to.
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Hurricane Katrina is one example. The Coast Guard was actually brought in,
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responded during the hurricane and saved thousands and thousands of lives.
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But the Coast Guard also came in and took over the response.
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There just wasn't enough cohesive response in the aftermath of Katrina.
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And the Coast Guard was actually brought in.
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Admiral Allen, who's a former complement of the Coast Guard and who's been involved
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in our museum project, he at that time came in and took over the response and
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literally coordinated every agency.
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And, you know, again, you know, the weeks following, still saving people out
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of their homes and stuff that were trapped. And just the coordination of what
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that response and recovery looked like.
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It's just incredible. And, you know, even, you know, you look at modern times,
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the recent hurricanes that.
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Have affected Florida and the East Coast, the Hawaii fires, the Coast Guard
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was the one there on scene, basically pulling people out of the ocean that were
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trying to flee in Lahaina.
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And just a couple small boats with 25-year-olds manning the boats, plucking people up.
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So, I mean, you could go on and on about the response of the Coast Guard,
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but, you know, it's a small and mighty force. You know, the number of active
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duty members, which I believe is around like 58,000, that's the size of the
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New York City Police Department.
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And you think about every inch of coastline across the country,
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and that's the size of the Coast Guard.
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So does the Coast Guard go, this is just a random question, where they actually
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work, is it to the coast or is it up against the coast?
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I'm in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Sure. And when we would take our boat out,
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we would see the Coast Guard kind of zipping around out there.
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But if there's someone out in the water up to the buoy, the lifeguards are all
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responsible for like, you know, what's happened on their beach.
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And they're all so responsible. I mean, these beach lifeguards are incredible
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humans. But at what point does the Coast Guard take over from that?
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Yeah, I mean, it all depends on the situation. So there's no...
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Sort of rule, but it all just depends on the situation of response.
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Yeah. And the intricacies of what the response is. But the coastlines are littered
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with small boat stations up and down both coasts and up into Alaska and Puerto Rico.
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So Coast Guard's everywhere. As small as it is, you think about the upper Great
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Lakes, Lake Champlain up in Vermont, like, you know, that's irresponsible from
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the borders up there as well as safety.
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So the Coast Guard, as small as it is everywhere.
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We actually have assets in the South China Sea. Another part of the Coast Guard's
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role is national fisheries, enforcing the laws of the regulations of the national
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fisheries. We have the Coast Guard in Bahrain, which many people don't know, doing port security.
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So the polar security cutters, you know, as I mentioned previously,
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the Coast Guard's still conducting Operation Deep Freeze on an annual basis.
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The Coast Guard is up patrolling in the Arctic. China and Russia own somewhere
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between 35 and 40 polar icebreakers themselves.
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And we've got a few new ones that are being built right now,
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but we're far behind in that. And the Coast Guard is responsible for maritime
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borders up in the Arctic.
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Yeah, that was another one of my questions, because I was reading that the Coast
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Guard has been involved in almost every major American military conflict.
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But what is their role in that? Like, what are some of the things that they
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would be involved in that.
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I mean, under, you know, period of war, the Coast Guard has historically,
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you know, then fallen under the Navy's command and kind of pulled under that DOD umbrella.
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But for some examples are, you know, one great example, Coast Guard has Douglas
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Monroe as our National Medal of Honor recipient.
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And in World War II, the Coast Guard piloted all those landing vessels.
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So you think about D-Day, you think about the Pacific Amphitheater, you know, you're.
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The landing craft to get the soldiers onto the beaches and then, you know, onto land.
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The landing craft were basically, those boats were driven by the Coast Guard
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personnel. So they, and very, you know, obviously extremely dangerous.
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You can look up the story about Douglas Monroe and how he basically saved the
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whole battalion of Marines and sacrificed his life in doing so.
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Also, another interesting fact is World War I, by the size of the service, if you did a,
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number of members lost per service, the Coast Guard lost the most members during
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World War I, which was, I just learned that recently, which was an interesting
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fact about their role during that war.
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So Vietnam is another example that the Coast Guard, again, several of our board
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members and volunteers for this museum project are Vietnam vets that I look highly up to.
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Admiral Loy, who's also former commandant of the Coast Guard and who actually
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came up with the idea that the Coast Guard needed a national museum.
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He was an officer on a patrol boat, so they did very dangerous work during the
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Vietnam conflict. They commanded all the patrol boats along the riverways.
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Again, a story that people don't know about the Coast Guard,
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and we're hopefully going to be able to tell that story soon. Yeah. So let's go.
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We've dove into so many of my questions, which is great.
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Awesome. We've really gone into all of them, but we've gone into the Coast Guard
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quite a bit. So I'd love to talk about the museum and how, where did the idea
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come from one of the admirals that, or how did that work where you guys said, look-
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It's time. Like, we need to do that. So, this is kind of interesting.
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I've been involved with the project for about 12 years now.
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Okay. I, you know, I thought I was getting involved for maybe like a four-year
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stint. And it's just, for a lot of different reasons, it's, we've,
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you know, it's exciting.
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We're going to be, you know, it's just, the Coast Guard just announced the opening
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day of August 5th, 2027, which we were just celebrating down at Times Square
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last week, which was really cool.
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But before I got involved, so going way back to the year 2000,
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Admiral James Jim Loy was commed down on the Coast Guard.
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And, you know, he looked around and saw that, you know, these,
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the other branches of the military all had national museums.
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And, you know, thankfully, he stood up and, you know, brought the issue forefront
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and Congress passed it through that the Coast Guard would finally get its National Museum.
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And that was, you know, right in the early 2000s.
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I don't know the full history and probably, you know, it's probably a good thing
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I don't because maybe I wouldn't have stuck this out.
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But so, you know, lots of different reasons This thing sort of like got started,
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you know, fits and starts.
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There was the financial crisis, you know, in 2009, 2008, that kind of put this thing on hold.
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It kind of got reinvigorated a couple of years later.
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And then in, you know, 2012, 2013, right around that time frame.
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Just to kind of bring the personal connection to this, my dad was contacted
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by the U.S. Navy Memorial in D.C., and they give out an award every year.
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It's called the Lone Sailor Award. And my dad had been they they had reached
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out and said that, you know, he was going to be the recipient honoring the Coast Guard.
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John Paul DiGiorgio, who started Paul Mitchell and owns the big tequila company,
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was the he was being honored as the Navy recipient.
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And there was a Marine recipient also. And so we went to this big gala dinner in D.C.
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It was so cool. My dad's being, you know, given this great award.
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And we met the commandant of the Coast Guard at the time, Admiral Bob Papp.
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And at the reception, he admits, he's like, we're so embarrassed.
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We're the Coast Guard and we had no idea that J.D. Power served in the Coast Guard.
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And, you know, oh my gosh, this is so great to meet you.
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Hey we've got this project we're trying to build a national coast guard museum
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we've been trying to do this for years would you like to get involved in some
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way and my dad very tactfully said sure he's like let me introduce you to my daughter,
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she she'd be the great she'd be a great person to talk to to maybe help you
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guys get this thing going but we'd love you know we'd love to help you in some
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way so that was that started the whole kick-started the whole piquing our interest
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and getting a little more involved.
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And about 2015, I believe, I joined the board of the Museum Association and,
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you know, quickly realized that.
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Things were going to have to change with the people that, you know,
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with the sort of how this thing was structured and how this thing was going
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to get done. And, and, you know, the Coast Guard doesn't raise money and build
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museums for a living. Right.
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Like, it's just not like, you know, and so I, I got a little bit more involved.
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Our, our family got, you know, we got involved in making some, you know.
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Contributions and kind of when that started, things started to heat up and,
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and sort of, We helped them rebuild the organization into a fundraising organization.
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And it took a bit of time. COVID hit.
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But, you know, we're happy to say that we've kind of steered the ship,
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no pun intended. And we've raised over $60 million private donations,
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which is the largest amount of money that's ever been raised for the Coast Guard for a project.
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And I'm very, very, very proud of that. I think there was a,
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you know, any bureaucracy that you deal with, you know, there was a lot of naysayers
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along the way. I think there was a lot of people that didn't believe this was going to get done.
24:29
It's a hard, it was a hard, you know, it's a hard project, right?
24:32
But I, you know, I've been very blessed with a great team.
24:36
Captain Wes Pulver, who's the president of the Museum Association,
24:40
has been a great partner in this.
24:42
And he's had an incredible career in the Coast Guard.
24:45
He he he's an academy grad and, you know, was a ship driver and worked in congressional
24:52
affairs for the Coast Guard.
24:53
And and his last three years, he was captain of the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle,
24:58
which is the tall ship training ship of the Coast Guard. That's going to be
25:02
home ported right out in front of the museum, which is really cool.
25:05
And Wes Wes has some superpowers. And I think we made a great team and we've
25:11
had great support from the Connecticut delegation.
25:14
I've learned so much about.
25:17
How these things get done and
25:19
working and working with the Connecticut delegation has been wonderful.
25:23
Senator Chris Murphy, Congressman Joe Courtney, Rosa DeLauro,
25:27
Congressman Rosa DeLauro, they've they've all been just extremely successful.
25:32
Supportive of us and helped us get the federal funding that we needed to keep
25:37
this museum on track. So, you know, I think this year's a great year because
25:42
there's a lot to celebrate and we've overcome all the hurdles.
25:46
And Connecticut is going to get the only, you know, the only military service
25:52
museum, you know, in the Northeast.
25:55
And it's like, I'm so excited that, You know, we're bringing this to the state
26:00
and it's going to be in a great location, right in front of the Amtrak station
26:04
in New London on the water and sort of a transportation hub.
26:08
And I can't wait for you to bring your kids.
26:12
You know, it's going to be pretty cool. That's amazing. I mean,
26:16
I've done, I do small, much smaller than 60 million fundraising.
26:20
I do a bunch of different philanthropy things because I love it.
26:24
And seeing people who get what we have made, right? Giving back to the community
26:29
is such a big thing for me. It always has been.
26:33
And the small pieces that we have to go through just to get permitting and.
26:40
The town to agree and this and that. I can only imagine the pointless that you
26:45
had in order to get this to happen from site location, construction,
26:51
permitting, and then the water.
26:54
Yeah, think about that on the waterfront. On the water, right? Environmental issues.
26:57
Blood zones, right? Oh, my gosh. I can't even think about the flood zones.
27:01
Yeah, right. How much did you raise $60 million? How much more did you have
27:05
to raise in order to get this fulfilled, done the way you wanted to?
27:09
Yeah, so it's quite a bit. So the project is over $200 million now.
27:14
That makes sense. A new school, by the way, is $120 million.
27:18
You know, we should get you involved in our marketing. Think about that.
27:22
Like a new school with, and then usually the state, we're totally digressing,
27:26
but this is all about fundraising and what the state gives you back for stuff.
27:29
But a lot of the schools in Connecticut, many of them have been trying to rebuild
27:33
their schools because they're like 30 years old and they get to the point where
27:36
if you open up the ceiling, you're going to have to take the whole thing apart anyway, right?
27:39
So it's cheaper to knock down the school and build an entire new one.
27:44
But if you build new, the state only gives you a certain percentage back.
27:47
Correct. And it's it's this game
27:50
of what what can the taxpayers pay versus what the state will give you.
27:55
And there's like this little game. So I can only imagine with that much money,
27:59
having to agree upon that. So it's the federal part of it.
28:02
You were able to get money back. And then when people go into the museum and
28:07
they pay whatever the fee is, if there is one.
28:10
There is no fee, actually. So it's a it's a free federal museum.
28:13
So you can make donations when you walk in.
28:17
Absolutely. There'll be plenty of opportunities to be able to do that.
28:21
And the Museum Association that I've chaired...
28:26
Our two main roles that we were tasked with was to raise the money and build the building.
28:31
And then when we hand over the key, once the building's done,
28:35
we're going to have a great commissioning ceremony. You're going to have to
28:37
join us. You're going to have to come visit. I'd love to.
28:40
And we then hand the building over to the Coast Guard. And their museum team
28:47
that has been hired are responsible for putting in all the exhibitry, all the technology.
28:53
We still work very much a partnership with them but then our museum association,
28:58
will evolve more into a supporting organization you know we're always gonna
29:03
be raising money because as you know right like you know keep the lights on
29:06
too gotta keep the lights on but you also you have to
29:10
you know museums are are not you know they're not you know they're they're not
29:14
static like you know they have a life to them and you've got to you've got to continually upgrade
29:20
you know you know we You know, over time, exhibit, you know,
29:23
technology is going to change. Exhibitry is going to change.
29:26
The Coast Guard makes history every day. So history is going to change along the way.
29:31
So our Museum Association will become a supporting organization of the museum.
29:35
And there's really going to be great opportunities for the local community to
29:40
be even more involved. Like, you know, you mentioned you're an event planner.
29:44
There's going to be opportunities for...
29:45
For you to bring in events, you know, after hours, we have a,
29:49
we have a beautiful event space.
29:52
The, we have these terraces that look over the waterfront on all the decks of the museum.
29:57
So there's going to be leadership opportunities. There's going to be school
30:01
opportunities to go in and actually have interactive,
30:06
opportunities to see what it's like to break the ice in a, in an icebreaker, to see what a,
30:11
see what it looks like to be, you know, part of a helicopter rescue so
30:15
the opportunities are just going to be incredible and i don't know yeah you
30:19
can have schools from everywhere trying to get in there for for education purposes
30:23
too yeah and i don't know if you've seen images of the the renderings of the
30:27
of the building but we can certainly get a bunch of those to you
30:30
oh i would love to see those yeah if you want to put that in that all of this
30:34
so people can see it too so you know as you enter the main entrance.
30:40
It's a five-story atrium that you're going to walk into with a spiral staircase,
30:46
that's going to bring you wrapped up around looking up at a Coast Guard helicopter
30:50
with a rescue swimmer coming out of the helicopter. I mean, that is going to be your...
30:55
That's your that's that's when you walk in the glass doors of this building.
30:58
That's what you're going to see and be a part of. So it's going to be pretty
31:01
dramatic. Yeah, that's incredible.
31:04
I would love to know if you have any idea how they're going to curate it.
31:09
Do you know what bits and pieces the museum team is thinking about to put in
31:14
there? What is what is there? Do you know what their goal is going to be?
31:16
What they want to emphasize first and foremost or. Yeah, I mean,
31:20
we can step in time kind of thing.
31:21
Yeah, so I'm not an expert on the exhibitry, but certainly I can provide you
31:28
a little bit more information after the call on what the five decks are going
31:31
to be touching upon. But each deck is a different theme.
31:35
There's champions of commerce. There's lifesavers around the world.
31:38
There's the national security deck.
31:40
So each deck is going to have its own theme and its own interactive experiences.
31:46
So you can actually get to see what the Coast Guard does on a daily basis.
31:49
And, you know, through the lens of the history of the Coast Guard and,
31:54
you know, not many people, you know.
31:58
Compared to the other services, it is somewhat of a complicated history to tell
32:01
because the Coast Guard,
32:02
you know, was first founded in 1790 by Alexander Hamilton, which was the revenue
32:07
cutter service, which was, you know, as our nation was becoming formed,
32:12
you know, Alexander Hamilton realized that, you know,
32:16
they had to create some income through, you know, And that's where the revenue
32:20
cutters were brought in to enforce the tariffs to get the country started, right?
32:27
All the way up to, you know, in the first quarter of the, you know,
32:32
1900s when the modern Coast Guard was formed, when the U.S. Life Saving Service
32:35
and Lighthouse Service were all combined underneath the Coast Guard umbrella. So it's quite a history.
32:42
Oh, wow. And I know since this is a podcast really about women,
32:46
will there be a section about women in the Coast Guard and the history of,
32:51
you know, when they were able to enter and be a part of it to how active they are now?
32:55
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think that's an important point to make about the Coast Guard.
33:02
The Coast Guard, you know, women in the Coast Guard can perform any mission, right?
33:06
They're not held back, you know, they're not held back because of gender in
33:10
the tasks that are performed by the Coast Guard.
33:12
So, you know, we have female helicopter pilots.
33:16
We have, you know, we just prior to this current commandant,
33:20
who's Kevin Lunday, Linda Fagan was the first commandant of the Coast Guard
33:23
that served right before Kevin.
33:24
And so, yeah, so I would also emphasize that when you look at the academies,
33:31
the Coast Guard Academy has upwards of over 40 percent of the cadets at the
33:35
Coast Guard Academy are women, which.
33:38
Is by far the largest amount of women compared to the other military academies.
33:43
So women play an important role. And, you know, obviously the spars were the
33:49
women that served in the Coast Guard during World War II. Their stories definitely can be told.
33:55
But, you know, the Coast Guard's history has, you know, women have been performing
34:00
quite a bit of Coast Guard history for a while now. So those stories will,
34:04
you know, be woven with it.
34:06
Oh, I love to hear that. I love to hear that. So you've had such a really interesting path.
34:11
Military service, business, philanthropy, nonprofit.
34:15
Is there a common thread that connects all of this for you?
34:20
Wow. I've never been asked that question. It's kind of cool.
34:25
Well, I mean, the common thread, I think, is my parents. Like,
34:32
I, you know, they've created this opportunity for me.
34:37
And I think a lot of our family's philanthropy has been based off of personal experiences.
34:44
You know, we have focused a lot on education, access to education.
34:49
Supporting this Coast Guard Museum has been a big part of our family's mission.
34:54
And a lot of things we do is, you know, is we try to honor our parents' legacy.
35:00
I realized as I've gotten older how fortunate I've been to have had the parents
35:06
I had. We unfortunately lost my mom.
35:09
She passed away at 64, which was much too young.
35:13
And as I get closer to that age, I realize, you know, really how young that was.
35:18
But yeah, I would say really the common thread has really been my parents and our family.
35:24
I mean, this Coast Guard Museum, my motivation has, you know,
35:29
really been to do right by my father and make this a world-class museum in his honor, along with,
35:37
you know, everyone that's ever served in the Coast Guard.
35:40
I want the Coast Guard to be proud of themselves. You know, they're the unsung heroes.
35:44
You know, there's a little bit of anybody that's served, you know,
35:47
has always sort of lived up to that or, you know, lived through the,
35:51
you know, the jokes about the Coast Guard. And, you know, we're kind of known
35:55
as the service that, you know, does more with less.
35:58
And, you know, I think I'm hoping that, you know, this museum will maybe shift
36:04
that paradigm a little bit into, you know, the Coast Guard being seen in a different
36:07
light and be really appreciated by this nation.
36:10
So that's been a big motivator. So I would say that, yeah, absolutely.
36:16
The common thread in my life has really been my parents. And I realize how fortunate
36:20
I am to be in that position.
36:23
That's incredible. I was president of an organization. And one of the things
36:28
I said at the beginning of the year one year was we don't have a lot,
36:30
but we do a lot with what we have.
36:32
Yeah. Because we couldn't raise a lot. But by golly, I was going to do anything
36:37
I could to make sure we could do whatever we could with what we have.
36:41
So at this point in your life, what does service mean to you?
36:45
Has your definition changed as you've gotten older, as you've gone through these
36:48
different parts of your life?
36:50
Or is it always just coming back to doing things for others or to honor,
36:56
you know, your family, like you said, but has it changed that idea of service?
37:00
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's changed. You know, I feel like those values
37:07
were really embedded into us at a very early age, even when my parents didn't have much.
37:14
And when they were trying to build their company, the family business,
37:18
they, you know, I mean, they were always serving their employees.
37:22
That was, I mean, we just grew up, you know, Thanksgiving dinner was,
37:27
you know, a lot of employees that didn't have anywhere to go.
37:29
Or Christmas dinner. Like it was just sort of how my parents led their lives.
37:33
So I feel fortunate that those are the values that were instilled in us.
37:40
I don't know if my idea of service has changed. I think.
37:46
My idea around leadership has definitely grown. I've learned quite a bit from
37:51
this Coast Guard Museum project, but also quite a bit from other organizations
37:56
that I've been involved with.
37:57
And one thing that always sticks out to me is, you know, leadership.
38:05
It could be hard, but if you really stay committed to your integrity and also
38:12
not afraid to speak the hard truths,
38:16
I think that's what's changed the most for me is really that coming into light,
38:21
that leadership is sometimes, or I should actually say a lot of the times is
38:26
saying the hard things that nobody else wants to say.
38:29
And I think that's been one of the greatest lessons I've really gotten out of
38:34
this project in particular.
38:36
But it's definitely that thread carries through in everything that I find myself,
38:43
in a readership position is speaking the hard truth is sometimes not the most
38:47
popular thing, but it's the only thing in order to move an organization forward.
38:53
Well, I think that was the greatest answer I've had at the end of any interview. Yeah. Thank you.
39:00
Thank you. I'm hearing more about this. I now want to, like,
39:04
read a book about the Coast Guard.
39:05
I want to understand more about it. You mentioned, yeah, I mean,
39:09
you mentioned when we first got started about, you know, having two,
39:12
you know, your two kids and maybe spark some interest there.
39:16
And that's another really big hope, you know, for me, for this museum is,
39:22
you know, I was, you know, inspired by my father.
39:27
But maybe this museum will open that door to inspire a lot of other kids that
39:31
may not have had that opportunity to learn about the Coast Guard.
39:34
So, you know, these are really big things that I'm not even sure the Coast Guard
39:41
realizes are going to be a result of this museum. Yeah.
39:45
Yeah. That's a really good point. That's a really good point.
39:47
I can't wait to take the boys there when it opens. Yeah.
39:50
Next year. And we're right up the road at Narragansett in the summertime.
39:53
And we're right down the road in Fairfield. So we can get there pretty readily.
39:58
Well, we'd love to have you come at any point. Thank you so much for joining me today.
40:03
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And I hope everyone gets a chance to
40:07
visit the museum, learn, and just understand the Coast Guard a little bit more.
40:12
And I think this would be great. So thank you very much.
40:15
Well, thank you. Appreciate the opportunity. Yeah.
40:19
Thank you so much for joining me today on She's Smart. New episodes drop every other Thursday.
40:24
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