Related Page

Come Fly With Us!
--by Les Fishman 

If you missed our meeting Friday, here's what you missed: a friendly greeting from our Sergeant-at-Arms Phyllis Pelezzare, a heartfelt invocation from our own Bruce Attig, a pledge of allegiance led by David Rowe, and a patriotic song led by Steve Coy. We then sat down for the midday lunch with some announcements laced in, particularly the announcement by Prez Keith Deisenroth that it was his birthday and we were instructed to sing "Happy Birthday to me" although we sang it to Keith and actually used his name for the most part! Introductions by Shell Hellberg with his Arkansas accent went swimmingly well. We had several visiting Rotarians, including Russ Gagliano, a former member of our Club, and Zoe TeBeau (pronounced like one of Shell's heros--Tim Tebow of Florida Gators football fame) who is from the Claremont Club, and who this reporter hired immediately upon finding out she was a personal property appraiser who also conducts sales of estates! Ain't networking great? After the introductions were complete, your fearless reporter led the welcome song, which was done quite well if I don't say so myself! Am I sounding like Prez Keith?

A couple other announcements were made, one by Bruce Attig who is going off the board as president of the Club Foundation after serving admirably for three years, who said the club is looking for someone to take his place. The requirements are the applicant must have been a member of the Club for at least a year, and not currently on the Board. If you are interested, please let Bruce know. (Click here to send Bruce an email.) Also, it was announced that Bruce's son, Clayton, was just honored for receiving his Eagle Scout Award. Congrats to Clayton but also to Bruce and Lynn for parents who kept him on track! But I digress . . .

Our speaker was Cindy Macha, who was introduced by Steve Coy, who did a wonderful job and introducing Cindy and making her feel at home. Cindy is the director for the Western Museum of Flight at the Torrance Airport . It is her vocation as well as her principal avocation. Cindy has been the director for four years. She comes from an aerospace family. Her father worked for North American, which became North American Rockwell and then Rockwell International and then Boeing. Following in her dad's footsteps, Cindy spent over 17 years with Northrup Grumman, where she worked in Engineering, Planning and Administration. Her twin brother is an aircraft archaeologist; and her late husband worked for both Douglas and Northrup Grumman.

Coming from an aerospace family, and being in aerospace industry veteran, she has a natural affinity to all things aeronautical. However her devotion to the museum stems from a far stronger motivation than that. The work of the museum serves to preserve and promote the rich heritage of the aerospace industry in Southern California and Cindy feels strongly that we must accomplish this preservation before the opportunity it lost.

One of the main programs as part of the museum is called "California Wings" and includes an educational component with the acronym KLAS, which stands for "Kids Love Aviation Sciences" and gives children the opportunity to research aviation history with the help of a wonderful aviation library and also the opportunity to meet and experience the numerous aviators in the area and learn of the earlier pioneers. We hope Cindy will come again.

That's all folks! See you next week!