From the Executive Director’s Desk

By Rear Adm. Edward S. “Sonny” Masso, USN (Ret.)

At the beginning of the pandemic, your Foundation staff took a hard look at how to best deliver relevant, quality content to our members that was easily accessed and that offered a way to directly interface with our team and get direct answers from our subject matter experts on any given topic. We began our quest by turning to our mission and vision statements for our 96-year-old Foundation:

Preserve and Honor: Remembering the legacy of those who came before us. Educate and Inspire: Passing the legacy on to the generations who will follow.

and Naval History • The Loss of the USS Thresher (over 25,000 views) • Lord Horatio Nelson at 250. His semiquincentennial of going to sea with the Royal Navy • The NHF 2021 Annual Meeting featuring the origins of Top

Gun • The Navy in Operation Desert Storm • The Navy Reserve/Mustin Family connection over a century of service • Batter Up: Major League Baseball and the U.S. Navy in

World War II • Art of the Sea: The artistic works of commissioned Navy artist Arthur Beaumont • The 20th commemoration of 9/11 and the Navy’s role

In October 2019 we hosted an exceptional and well-attended event commemorating the Battle of Leyte Gulf at the historic Decatur House, just across the street from the White House. Our Foundation historian, Dr. Dave Winkler, reached out to C-SPAN, and they graciously recorded our conference, which served as one of our motivators for creating our Second Saturday webinar.

As the pandemic emerged, the Foundation was again challenged to host an annual meeting, this time via an online platform with a guest speaker (Dr. Craig Symonds) being featured from a remote location. What we found by doing this was very impressive. We had record numbers of viewers, and bringing Tom Hanks in to introduce Dr. Symonds (a technical consultant for the movie Greyhound) seemed to be the “hook” to attract a large audience. We were sold on the prospect of delivering solid content with historically relevant warfighters, historians, and academicians to develop and deliver what today is known as Second Saturday. The results of our webinars are impressive. Our topics have included the following: • The NHF Annual Meeting featuring Dr. Craig Symonds • Leadership Lessons of Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower • Herman Wouk and The Caine Mutiny: The Book, Movie,

All together, these Second Saturday webinars have been viewed live and from YouTube by over 30,000 viewers with many substantial and positive comments from the viewers. Future topics include the following: • The Battle of Surigao Straits as told from Adm. James Holloway’s personal experience, with a distinguished panel • USS Olympia’s 100th anniversary of delivering the hallowed remains of the first Unknown Soldier to the The Art of the Sea Second Saturday webinar in Washington Navy Yard for delivery August featured the works of commissioned Navy to Arlington National Cemetery artist Arthur Beaumont. • 80th commemoration of Pearl Harbor In addition, we continue to bring you our weekly Thursday Tidings e-letters. We are proud of the content we deliver to you each week and month. Our plans for the future include both podcasts and more artist chats between book authors and our staff historian, Dr. Winkler. There has never been a better time to join our Foundation or donate to our advancement of the promotion of naval history. We look forward to you joining us to enjoy all our historical content! Edward S. “Sonny” Masso Rear Adm., USN (Ret.)