Flurry of initiatives indicates course ahead at air museum ahead

In Act 2, Scene 2 of his play Romeo and Juliet, celebrated English bard William Shakespeare observes, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.”

That answer pretty much sums up our reaction to the redubbing of the McMinnville Aviation & Space Museum to the North American Aerospace Museum. It’s apparently going to be known as NORAM for short, a wise decision as NAAM would not doubt stir memories of another, earlier American war gone terribly wrong. Yes, that one.

Locally, the Baptist College at McMinnville begot McMinnville College, which begot Linfield College, which became Linfield University, and matriculation continued there unimpeded. City Sanitary morphed into Western Oregon Waste, which morphed into Recology Western Oregon, and trash collection continued unabated. So we’ll survive.

Besides, there was no special historical significance to “Evergreen” when Del Smith chose it for his fledgling helicopter company, and handed it on down to his other aviation-related enterprises before they took a spectacular plunge into a tangled web of bankruptcies.

What interests us more is the encouragingly proactive revisioning, rebranding and revitalization effort accompanying the name change. The new name is superficial and symbolic at best, while the underlying changes in mission, culture and operation promise to run much deeper and pay real lasting dividends if pulled off effectively.

Scot Laney, the man behind all the motion, is a relative newcomer. He just joined the museum board four years ago and was named CEO two years ago.

His career path has been eclectic, to say the least.

After 14 generations in farming, on one side at least, he set out to study law, became a police officer instead, then partnered in a venture to manufacture industrial polymers with an array of heavy equipment applications.

He still co-owns the company, but has retired from running it, giving him a chance to once again set off in an entirely new direction. And set off he has, with a flurry.

Over recent months, the museum has reorganized its exhibits by category and function, labeled them more clearly and prominently, introduced a new background soundtrack, and eliminated, in Laney’s words, “75% of the chains and barricades.”

It has also introduced a series of temporary pop-up displays not necessarily related to aviation. One featured European cars, and another will explore tractors.

Coupled with a heavy menu of special theme events throughout the year, the aim is to use everchanging variety to drive repeat visits, particularly on the part of locals.

We see some room for improvement in the museum’s current outreach to locals, though.

According to an AI search, most museums around the country offer special discounts to locals, including ours. The seemingly all-knowing robots say locals qualify for $4 off the regular $26 adult general admission.

But the museum says tickets are generally purchased online, and when we checked there, we found no provision for claiming any such discount — or even learning of its existence.

We found a link labeled “discounts@evergreen,” but it led us to a page warning: “WHOOPS! This page could not be found. Return to home.”

Free or discounted options were listed on the ticket purchase page for veterans, seniors, youngsters, toddlers and active-duty personnel, but we found no mention of locals. Also missing was any indication of discounts allegedly available to holders of Oregon Trail Cards and Oregon college or university ID cards.

Laney indicates half of museumgoers are from other countries, a quarter from other states, and the other quarter mostly from other counties. He’d like to rebalance that a bit.

Attendance peaks on weekends, particularly in summer. That suggests to us the museum might focus its local draw efforts on off-season weeknights.

How about nine months of deeper discount Wednesdays, or something akin to that? Our thinking is, if you find the right price point, and make it very well known, you should have a chance to attract some serious new traffic on otherwise low-ebb days.

We appreciate Laney’s enthusiasm. Hopefully, he will appreciate ours.

If you stop moving forward, you are almost certainly poised to begin falling backward. It seems the time is right, with the Marriott AC Retreat about to begin offering a worthy on-campus lodging option, for just the kind of moving forward Laney is envisioning.