Opportunity Snapshot

If you love teaching and have a passion for the sea, here is the ideal opportunity to combine your career and your passion. The Newport Harbor Nautical Museum has an opportunity for you to develop a brand new nautical education series at a respected community institution.

Founded over twenty years ago, we are in the midst of an exciting transformation which includes (1) building an entirely new facility on the Balboa Fun Zone waterfront to showcase our growing collections, and (2) significantly expanding our education and community outreach programs to enlighten and inspire young and old alike for many years to come.

As our new Education Director, you'll take your place at the helm of these educational endeavors and put your imagination to full use as you coordinate with our talented team, dedicated volunteers, and ample community resources to plan, organize and execute a new series of signature programs and other activities that foster the nautical heritage of Newport Harbor, Southern California, and the eastern Pacific.

Your Rewards

This is a rare opportunity for you to get in on the ground floor and become a part of the passionate group that plans to turn this museum into a world-class destination. It's also your chance for a rewarding career that offers, among other things:

• Location, location, location! -- you'll enjoy the rare and greatly sought-after indulgence of spending each and every work day on the waterfront and/or out on the water designing, implementing, and operating educational programs centered around the ocean.
• High impact -- by designing educational programs that both inspire young minds and set the standard for nautical museums around the country, you'll be in a strong position to make a name for yourself in the non-profit sector while also bettering the community in which we live.
• Broad visibility -- you'll further establish yourself as an expert in nautical-focused education within the community as you regularly interact with teachers and administrators throughout Southern California and beyond.
• Excellent benefits -- along with a competitive salary and bonus incentive program, we offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes medical, dental, and vision insurance (we pay 100% of the employee's coverage in the HMO option); 403(b) retirement savings plan; paid vacation; and more.

Our Requirements

• 5+ years museum education experience preferred
• Experience building educational programs
• Grant writing experience, and a sales-oreinted perspective
• Strong initiative and drive
• Master's degree preferred

More About Your Role

Reporting to the Executive Director in our new Balboa Peninsula location, you'll quickly get up to speed with the assistance of our nine staff members and various volunteers and part-time helpers so that you can begin restructuring and adding to our educational offerings within a matter of weeks.

Your primary goal for your first year will be to organize and implement three to four signature education programs that meet curriculum standards, promote the mission of the museum and provide a stimulating environment for students. These programs should make excellent use of our proximity to the waterfront and local resources (such as boat companies and other vendors), not to mention students' interests, school district time and participation, and available grant funding. Already we employ one such successful program called the Partnership for Clean Water, which you'll continue and enhance. Established in September 2000, this is a mandatory, co-curricular program for all Newport-Mesa Unified School District fifth grade students, and to give you an idea, we are expecting approximately 2,500 students from the district this year (with room for growth).

Currently, the on-site Nautical Museum activities include a watershed video, a visit from the fire boat of the Harbor Patrol, kelp forest video, and tours of the galleries and the touch tank. In addition to improving upon this existing design, you will take over the current responsibilities, which include:

• Conducting teacher training at school district headquarters;
• Scheduling all fifth-grade students from Newport-Mesa Unified School District;
• Insuring standards are met through pre- and post-scantron testing of students;
• Securing and coordinating external resources to support the program;
• Conducting classroom activity; and
• Coordinating responsibility and input of partners such as The Surfrider Foundation.

We have outlined another such course called the Young Mariners program, which has yet to be implemented and you may find useful; however, we will also count on your ambitious creativity to create additional exciting curriculum and field trips that meet the above demands, as well as your initiative to work with our team and secure the resources you need to effectively and efficiently get them up and running.

Once organized, you'll venture to get the word out. You'll spend up to 50% of your time in the "selling season" of late Spring and early Summer meeting with and making presentations to administrators and teachers in surrounding districts, beginning in Orange County and eventually expanding into the Inland Empire, Los Angeles County and San Diego County. You will also attend teacher conferences and symposiums to further connect and maintain a feel for district preferences and needs. Additional activities will include updating and maintaining the education section of our website by working with our webmaster, developing sales materials for distribution, and providing additional outreach as needed. Through these efforts, we'll expect both the museum and our educational offerings to become commonly known within local schools and districts.

Next, you will expand our adult lecture series (which targets our membership base and other interested persons) to include three lectures each Fall and another three each Spring. This will include scheduling expert speakers on nautical topics, advertising these speaking events, coordinating venue preparation, confirming reservations and monitoring the quality of the lectures.

From there, you'll focus on fundraising to support our programs and cover school bus costs, which allow for increased educational program participation. This will entail working with our Development Director to identify donor targets and asset promotions, then contacting member donors for support. You will also continue to maintain some of our existing non-signature programs and resources, such as:

• Boy Scout Sea Base summer program, which will include: administering and scheduling a bi-weekly summer program in alliance with the Newport Beach Sea Base aimed at 9- and 10-year-old WEBELOS scouts and Junior Aquatics day campers and serving 800 students annually; negotiating terms with scout administrators; coordinating volunteer support; designing and conducting merit badge-related activities; and scheduling and preparing adult tours and other customized tours according to group interests.
• Shipmodel Building Program, which will include: coordinating both volunteers and teachers in the Fullerton School District for lessons plans, and organizing the opening with teachers and parents.
• Orange County Imagination Celebration, which will include: serving as the museum representative on the Steering Committee, negotiating museum participation in the Imagination Celebration activities, planning and directing the museum's participation in scheduled events, and coordinating all activities required for a student art exhibit-including opening reception, judging art work, set up and take down of exhibit.
• Shipmate Volunteer Program, which will include: serving as the museum staff liaison with the Shipmate program and OCDL; conducting periodic orientations, training and certification for Shipmates; and coordinating Shipmate support for selected museum functions and events.
• Orange Coast College Volunteer Program, which will include: negotiating yearly support with the OCC volunteer coordinator, scheduling OCC volunteers to support museum requirements, and overseeing OCC volunteers while on site.
• Docent Training Program, which will include: conducting docent training classes, preparing docents for certification by the OCDL (Orange County Docent League), and attending OCDL seminars and meetings.

In addition, you will be responsible for general administrative duties, such as securing supplies for all programs through donations and purchases and composing monthly reports for trustee meetings, quarterly newsletter articles and annual reports pertaining to the education program. And like everyone on our team, you'll further be expected to support other museum events and functions as necessary.

Keys to Success

Your success in this role will become the result of:

• Strong initiative & an "anything is possible" philosophy -- we're looking for an energetic and optimistic "go-getter" who will find avenues of opportunity and pursue them whole-heartedly.
• Creativity -- traditionally, many of our programs have been classroom and story-box oriented, and while these features are effective in some respects, we're hoping you'll greatly augment them with dynamic and interesting activities that take our students out onto the water and into a new world of learning adventures.
• Excellent follow-through -- coming up with outstanding educational programs is just the beginning; execution will be where you make your impact.
• Great people skills -- in essence, you will become our eyes, ears and voice in the community, so it is important that you can positively represent the museum as you regularly interact with teachers and administrators, as well as students, face-to-face.
• Effective fundraising skills -- you'll need to be articulate, persuasive, and sales oriented -- not to mention a good writer -- in order to effectively promote the virtues of our programs and win over our donors.
• Dedication -- you'll show a willingness to put in the time necessary to get these programs off the ground and to keep them running smoothly, while also making time for fundraising, promotion, and the other responsibilities of the role.

If this sounds like the right mix of challenge and opportunity, and you meet the required qualifications, we look forward to hearing from you.

Who We Are

Dedicated to preserving and promoting maritime heritage, the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum first opened its doors in 1986 on Balboa Boulevard. We fulfill our mission through education, preservation and engaging interactive experiences.

The story of our maritime culture and heritage as well as the vitality of our marine environment is the focus of our educational programs, which have been in place since 1997. The Museum maintains and builds excellent relationships with teachers and students in several Southern California school districts in order to effectively provide these opportunities for area youth. Linked to the California State Curriculum, our programs are an excellent resource for co-curricular work in science and history/social studies that carefully match the standards for each grade. Through the generosity of a museum member and Pacific Life Foundation, transportation to educational programs is facilitated, which enables under-privileged children, many of whom have limited exposure to the beach and harbor environment, to visit the Nautical Museum and participate in the programs available.

Today, with the growing need for new and innovative cultural institutions in our community, the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum is expanding its facility and programs to reach a broader and more diverse audience. In late 2005, the Museum successfully purchased 34,000 square-feet of waterfront property in the Fun Zone on the Balboa Peninsula, plus the adjacent docks, and we officially completed our move to Balboa Peninsula by the end of 2006. We have already opened the initial two phases of the new facility: the Richard and Betty Steele Model Pavilion and the East Wing Learning Center. In addition to establishing ourselves as a destination for visitors in the Fun Zone and a location to host community and corporate events, the new facility also gives us an opportunity to expand our education programming to include extensive adult learning options as well as exciting classes for the younger generation. For more information, please visit www.nhnm.org.