Delta Air Lines and the Delta Flight Museum have some
exciting milestones coming up in 2025. Delta will be celebrating their early
beginnings with 100 years of Huff Daland Dusters, and the Museum is celebrating
30 years of incorporation.
It’s an exciting time to join the team as the new Director
of Exhibits & Public Programs. I’ve been tasked to look ahead and strategize
about how we want to refresh the Museum exhibits and spaces to celebrate these
two milestones.
Luckily for me, the Museum has so many opportunities with an
abundance of historic artifacts and great stories. Even the Museum itself is an
artifact in that it sits in the oldest buildings on ATL campus: Delta’s two 1940s
historic hangars.
I come from Ohio where my subject-matter expertise has been
steeped in American Temperance & Prohibition, as I managed the Westerville History Museum - which is located in the former headquarters of the Anti-Saloon League. Below I sit in a Ford Model T with my former staff at the opening of a museum exhibition to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Prohibition (2020).
Although aviation is a new subject for me, I have experience
working with the public in a variety of ways through exhibitions, programs,
tours, video series, and more. I am passionate about stories that connect people to the past in a way that sparks curiosity. One of my favorite things to hear from a visitor is that they learned something they didn't know before, and they no longer think "history is boring."
Currently, I have been immersing myself in aviation, and the amazing idea
and history of flight. I've been studying early commercial aviation, and learning many of Delta's historic "firsts" - such as being the first airline to fly living vegetable plants in 1945 (160,000 tomato plants!) I'm learning about Catherine Fitzgerald, who was Delta's first female board member in 1930. She also is the one responsible for choosing the name "Delta."
As I stepped into this role, I became a visitor advocate.
When I put myself in the shoes of the museum visitor, I can see many
opportunities to amplify artifacts and stories, so that the Museum is more engaging,
inclusive, accessible, welcoming, and more up to date with our constantly
changing and evolving times.
The Museum staff are to be applauded as visitor survey
results show 99% of visitors said they would recommend the museum to others.
The museum is already an amazing place that people love to visit, so I look
forward to building on that stellar reputation as we look ahead to the future -
the sky is no limit!
Nina Thomas
Director - Exhibits & Public Programs