Now is the director of what is truly, and I mean this, my absolute favorite museum anywhere in the world, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Please welcome to the show, Christopher Browne.
What an honor, sir.
Really nice to see you here.
Wow, what an honor and privilege it is to be here in the New York Stock Exchange the day before we rededicate the building on its 50th anniversary.
So special.
So let's talk all about that because you know people know I've worked here for many years, but I also, I used to live and work in Washington DC.
And there was no place I loved quite like your museum.
So talk to me about why you rang the closing bell.
What are you here to celebrate?
Well, you and many millions of other people have visited the museum over the last 50 years and been changed by the experience.
Frankly, the building wore itself out and so for the last 10 years we've spent upwards of a billion dollars of both taxpayer funds and significant philanthropy to completely rebuild the museum.
New stories, expanding on the old.
Immersive contemporary ways of meeting our visitors.
And so tomorrow we open 5 galleries which will take us to 20 to wrap up this project on July 1st, the 50th anniversary of the building's original opening.
And please correct me if I'm wrong, that prior to this role you flew more than 1400 flight hours for the US Navy.
I did.
I flew F-14s, 3.
20 carrier landings on the Dwight D.
Eisenhower ship that was not too long ago in the Gulf and still in use.
Incredible.
So first I want to say thank you and thank you for your service.
And how did that experience prepare you for what you now get to do representing such an incredible institution the way you do?
Well, it's a good question because as I look back my time flying in the Navy were my most formative years in terms of preparing me as a professional, as a person.
Decision making.
How do you make important decisions when you don't have all the facts, because indecision is a decision of its own and being able to operate under moments of stress, be very mission oriented, very focused, and very, as I said, mission driven.
Am I allowed to ask if you have favorite artifacts, favorite?
Items that are actually inside the museum, I'm sure they're all like children to you in one degree or another, but any that really stand out that are special to you, especially as a Navy guy?
Well, the aircraft, the F-14 we have in the collection at our companion facility, Stephen F.
Udvarhazi Center next to Dulles, I have 2 hours of flight time in that very aircraft, so that makes me, I guess, as much of an artifact as it is.
But I think in the mall museum, which again is reopening.
There's a particular artifact that I think tells the story, and it's a piece of 1 inch by 1 inch cloth from the original Wright Wright Flyer along with a piece of small wood.
And those pieces were given by the Wright family to Neil Armstrong.
So when you, and he took them to the moon with him, so only 66 years separate the first powered flight from the first human steps on the moon.
And so it's this period of 66 years of of science and technology and ingenuity and and risk taking that sort of collide.
And tell what I think is an American story, human ingenuity, people being curious and solving problems.
So, I have less than a minute left.
Your top goals, your ambitions for the next 50 years and beyond of this incredible place.
Well, the museum is a place of education, and we've sort of put a lot of pieces in place to continue that mission.
It's one thing to build a museum.
It's another thing to be a museum, and so we are.
Place of education we know people learn in different ways today than they did 50 years ago, so we want to connect with them, experiences that let people see themselves in the exhibits and see the possibilities.
I've been looking forward to talk with you all day, sir.
I absolutely love the museum.
I cannot wait to get back and see the reopening.
Christopher Brown, director of the one and only Smithsonian National Airspace.
