MCA’s Peter Trozze, AIA and Paul Van Riley, AIA attended the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums’(MAAM) Annual Meeting 2019 at the Historic Thayer Hotel in West Point, NY. MCA is very proud to be the Gold Level Sponsor of the MAAM Opening Reception and Katherine Coffey Award Presentation to Kinshasa Holman Conwill, Deputy Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. It is an honor to support MAAM’s mission to support and promote excellence, ethics, and accessibility in museum practices to make the museums of the Mid-Atlantic Region better able to preserve and interpret our diverse cultural, scientific, and aesthetic heritage.
From left to Right:
• Gretchen S. Sorin, Ph.D., Director and Distinguished Professor Cooperstown Graduate Program (2009 Katherine Coffey Award winner 2009)
• Peter Trozze, AIA, NCARB, Associate Principal MCA Architecture
• Kinshasa Holman Conwill, Deputy Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. (2019 Katherine Coffey Award winner 2009)
• Paul Van Riley, AIA, NCARB, Associate Principal MCA Architecture
The theme of this year’s meeting was “Navigating Challenges: Cultivating the Attitude of “Yes!””. Embracing the attitude of “Yes” was the common element in each of the sessions that addressed a wide range of topics. Peter and Paul attended numerous seminars and discussion sessions that explored implementing technology and social media, accessibility, fundraising, leadership and staff relations, crumbling infrastructure, and community involvement. Discussions focused on lessons learned from successes and more importantly, failures, encouraging an open discussion from a variety of professionals’ perspectives in order to embrace a positive perspective and determination to explore new techniques, concepts and positive attitudes – emphasizing the concept of “Yes!” As Architects, it is critical to understand the issues that are important to our clients and explore their challenges and concerns in a venue that is an open forum for the exchange of ideas and new perspectives.
We were also excited to be invited to the Emerging Museum Professionals Leadership events to meet many young emerging professionals as well as several other seasoned mentors. We participated in small group discussions where we listened to the emerging professional’s stories. We felt their passion and related to their struggles as they enter into this competitive field. We shared our experiences, challenges, and lessons learned, to help them see the various paths their professional aspirations may take them and encouraged them to take risks and pursue their dreams. We also dared to join them for an evening out for “Museum Trivia” where we were teamed with the “Emerged Professionals” and enjoyed an evening of competition and comradery.
MCA is a proud member of MAAM and excited that we could both contribute to, and participate in, a very successful Annual Meeting for 2019. We are eager to meet again our museum colleagues in Chicago for the MAAM Building Museums 2020 conference, where we hope to be able to formally announce and discuss some exciting and significant work that we have been engaged in over this past year.
Photo Credit: Shivkumar Desai
