LEMAY – AMERICA’S CAR MUSEUM

Name of your organization:

LeMay-America's Car Museum

Date of this application:

4/6/2022

Address:

2702 East D Street Tacoma, WA 98421

TelephoneNumber:

(253) 779-8490

E-mail Website EIN info@americascarmuseum.org https://www.americascarmuseum.org/ 91-1867848

Person to Contact Regarding this Proposal:

Renee Crist, Curator of Collections

Phone Number/E-mail Address:(253) 683-3967 renee.crist@americascarmuseum.org

Amount Requested: Total Project Budget: $8,500 $8,500

Total Department Budget: $140,000

The RPM Foundation funds education and training for the next generation of restoration craftsmen and artisans.

We encourage your application. Thank

1. Provide a brief description of the program/project for which you are requesting funding.

Since 2008, America's Car Museum Collection has provided internship opportunities for hands learning along with real-world work experience to students enrolled in post-secondary education schools. For the summer of 2022 we are requesting grant in the amount of $8,500 to fund one paid student internship working in the Collections Department.

2. Who will this grant help and how?

The funding provided by the grant will provide a student enrolled in an automotive, technical or engineering program the opportunity to supplement their classroom training with valuable work experience. The student will have the opportunity to interact with a wide variety of historic vehicles that are part of the LeMay- America’s Car Museum’s Collection and gain practical work experience.

3. How many students will benefit from your request, and what age range are they?

This internship supports one student, post secondary education, age 18-25.

4. If you were to be awarded only a portion of your grant request, do you have the ability to fund the remaining portion?

List any alternate sources of funding, and describe your institution’s and community’s commitment to your program.

The Collections department at LeMay-ACM is only able to offer paid student internship positions through sponsorship. The RPM Foundation Grant award allows future professionals to supplement their living expenses while gaining important work experience in an active automotive museum, working alongside experienced professionals in vehicle collections management.

5. Restoration and preservation professionals are artists and craftspeople. Describe the skills and techniques being taught at your institution and how many hours students are spending receiving hands-on training and classroom learning.

The automotive heritage Collection at LeMay-ACM is comprised of over 250 vehicles representing over 100 years of automotive technology, and an additional 50-60 vehicles on loan. The student will be exposed to best practices in the management of a large vehicle collection, working with our curator, collections technician and a team of collections volunteer technicians. Work includes research and authentication, mechanical assessment and maintenance, proper operation, conservation and the preservation of antique, classic post war and and modern collectable automobiles and motorcycles. The museum is currently restoring a 1930 Ford Model A Cabriolet to be completed this by Fall of 2022.

6. The RPM Foundation's mission is to support pathways to careers in restoration and preservation. Give examples of how your program directly impacted, or will impact, individuals in their vehicle restoration careers.

2017 Intern Abigale Morgan, McPherson College. Following her internship at ACM, Abi joined her McPherson classmates for Monterrey for Car Week and the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Upon graduation from McPherson automotive studies, she went on to gain a staff position working on the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours and is now the Assistant Director for Auto Restoration at McPherson College. Josh Baum worked with the museum following his internship and is currently working as a Conservator for a large private vehicle Collection. Form Intern, Jerry Smith is currently a senior collections technician, specializing in transportation objects for one of the largest art and history museums in the western United States.

Office: 2702East D Street,Tacoma,WA98421 | TollFree: 855.537.4579 | Email: info@rpm.foundation | Website: www.rpm.foundation

April 6, 2022

RPM Foundation Nick Ellis, Mentorship and Grants Administrator 2702 East D. Street Tacoma, WA 98421

Dear Mr. Ellis,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to apply for consideration of an RPM Foundation grant award in the amount of $ 8,500 to underwrite one Collections internship position at LeMayAmerica’s Car Museum (L-ACM) during the summer of 2022.

To be considered for this internship opportunity, the selected student will be enrolled a qualified automotive conservation, restoration, engineering and/or management program. The student chosen for the internship will be working in the Collections Department at L-ACM gaining hands-on experience and knowledge working side-by-side with myself, our Collections Technician and Collections Volunteer staff on a wide variety of vehicles.

In addition to hands-on learning, the L-ACM internship program provides the intern with a wellrounded automotive museum experience. The student will perform a variety of duties; foremost is assisting with the care and preservation of vehicles and automobilia on exhibit. Our intern will also assist with preparing and moving vehicles for events, or rotating vehicles and other objects on display within exhibits. As part of this education program, the student receives training in vehicle assessment, training in automotive detailing, collections management, and gains experience interacting with the public in the museum as well as at museum events. This opportunity for real-world learning is critical to supporting a new generation of specialists and professionals in our industry. By supplementing and complementing the student’s classroom and shop training, this field experience expands the participants’ knowledge and skills – and meaningfully enhances the student’s credentials. Professional references gained by the experience will also be highly instrumental in seeking future employment.

We are deeply grateful for the support we have received from the RPM Foundation. Together, we are each contributing to supporting the next generation of specialists who will be the stewards of our automotive heritage. I appreciate the opportunity to present this application for your review and thank you in advance for your thoughtful consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Renee K. Crist Curator of Collections

Benjamin worked with volunteer teams restoring a 1930 Ford Model A Cabriolet from the ACM Collection

After preparing vehicles for operation, Benjamin was able to offer demonstration rides to museum guests for “Take a Spin

PATHWAY TO CAREERS by Stefan Lombard

Following his internship at ACM, Jerry explored aspects of museology beyond the realm of the automobile, including a stint in Honduras during excavation of the City of the Jaguar. 34

The man with a PLAN

JERRY SMITH was raised on a farm in eastern Colorado, where he grew up hearing his father’s stories of street racing in the 1950s. The pair restored a 1956 Ford F-100 together, though young Jerry already had an eye for early Mustangs. “I started working for pay on the farm at 12, and I saved to buy one when I turned 16.” Soon bitten by the rallying bug, he turned to a VW Scirocco, “because it looked like the Audi Quattro Group B rally car.”

The 36-year-old put racing on hold six years ago to return to school full time, earning first a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Colorado State University and then a master’s degree in museology (museum studies) with an emphasis in collections management from the University of Washington.

PHOTO: LEMAY – AMERICA'S CAR MUSEUM

The Hagerty Education Program at America’s Car Museum awards scholarships and educational grants to organizations committed to preserving and restoring collector vehicles. Learn more at hagertyeducationprogram.org.

The $4,000 award gave him an opportunity to work with lenders as well as immerse himself in automotive research and label writing. He also had a hand in moving cars around the facility, including the museum’s “Take A Spin” visitor experience events.

More importantly, Jerry developed and completed his master’s thesis, “Road Signs: Preservation, Restoration and Operation of Museum Vehicles — A Best Practices Toolkit,” while interning at ACM. “Essentially, I created a document that outlined suggested best practices regarding preservation, restoration and operation.”

Jerry worked on his project with the museum’s Collections Manager, Renee Crist, who recognized the potential benefits of his efforts for new museums, as well as private collections. “Even art or history museums might have one or two vehicles in their collections,” she says, “and they don’t know what to do to preserve them.” His ready-made toolkit will provide these institutions with “a set of practices for the transportation pieces in their collection.”

Jerry's goal is to become collections manager or curator at an automotive museum. He also can’t wait to get back to racing. “A collection of interesting small cars wouldn’t hurt, either.”

PAthwAy to cAreerS by Stefan Lombard

Josh has been around classic cars his whole life, and his role at the collection allows him to get paid to do something he loves.

Josh bauM has always been fascinated by what he calls “our built environment as influenced by the automobile.” Which explains why he once owned and began restoration on a 1940s Sinclair filling station in his hometown of Hays, Kansas.

Josh recently earned an MA in Historical Preservation from the university of Georgia. The program’s emphasis is structural — buildings, houses, bridges — but Josh is a car guy as well as a card-carrying member of the Historic Vehicle Association (HVA). It makes sense, then, that his thesis is an examination of the HVA’s steps in creating the National Historic Vehicle to restore or not to restore? The for Josh bauM, the answer is siMPle.

conSerVAtor

M A u OSH B PHOTO: J

the hagerty education Program at america’s Car Museum awards scholarships and educational grants to organizations committed to preserving and restoring collector vehicles. learn more at hagertyeducationprogram.org. Register based on the long-established guidelines of the National Historic Preservation Act. He’s been out of the classroom for the last three years, however, and he’s spent that time applying his education and his passion on the West Coast in an effort to save old cars.

The 31-year-old currently works for a private collection in southern California, where he cares for several completely original vehicles as an automotive preservationist. “The job ranges between detailing and fine art conservation,” Josh says. “I work to maintain the original features of the vehicles and document any potential changes or modifications that may be needed for safety purposes.” For a car guy with an eye toward protecting history, the job is hard to beat.

Before he landed his dream job, however, Josh interned at LeMay–America’s Car Museum in Tacoma, Washington. Through a grant from the Hagerty Education Program (then called the Collectors Foundation), Josh practiced much of what he does now — maintenance on the museum’s collection — and also helped to stage exhibits and update the museum’s vehicle research database. The three-month internship led to a full-time position as assistant curator. In many ways, the museum’s mission — to honor “America’s love affair with the automobile” — meshed perfectly with Josh’s own interests, specifically wanting “to tell the story not just of the cars, but how the cars have affected us as people.”

As a working automotive conservator, and as someone who benefitted from HEP, what Josh most appreciates about the program is its focus on helping to develop young people who are passionate about the types of craftsmanship and artistry that are largely missing from today’s society. “I think it would be tragic if we were to get to a point where we were losing these vehicles, these historic resources, because we didn’t have the people in place with a knowledge of their construction or engineering, or an understanding of their significance.”

Tragic is an apt word for it. So it’s nice to know that Josh is out there working not only to preserve old cars, but the hobby itself.