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Annual Reports: 2000: Message from the President
"It is humbling to be a steward of an institution that
can so significantly affect people’s lives."
 In 1967 a group of economically disadvantaged fifth grade
students from the El Sereno elementary school in East Los
Angeles traveled to Colonial Williamsburg. Their teacher,
Florence Lynn, had contacted the Foundation for advice about
a model of eighteenth-century Williamsburg her students were
constructing for their history class. When members of the
board of trustees saw one of the miniature buildings, the
Brush-Everard House, which had been sent for review along
with several related student workbooks, they were so impressed
they presented the entire class with an all-expense-paid trip
to Williamsburg. This was a remarkable opportunity for these
youngsters, most of whom had never been outside Los Angeles.
The impact on the largely Hispanic students was immediate
and in some cases profound.
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| Terri Fornelli, family, and friends with Colonial Williamsburg’s Bill Pfeifer
on Palace Green |
This past May 2001, seven of that original group returned to
Colonial Williamsburg. One of them,Terri Fornelli, a Mexican immigrant, had
been just eleven years old when she first visited here.
This time she came as an adult. And as an American. Inspired
by her visit thirty-four years ago, Terri Fornelli became
a United States citizen in 1984. I found her recent recollection
of that original trip particularly moving: “I remember
standing in the Capitol and looking around,” she
said. “I remember being there where Washington and
Jefferson were. Right then and there I fell head over
heels for the country. I knew I was going to be an American.”
It is humbling to be a steward of an institution that can
so significantly affect people’s lives. Humbling and
inspiring and challenging. Since becoming chairman of the
board of trustees in November 1998 and chief executive in
April 2000 it has been my good fortune to be ever closer to
the people and programs of Colonial Williamsburg. In this
extended time of transition we have continued to move forward
together, programmatically and operationally, to seek ways
to ensure that Terri Fornelli’s experience is replicated
for today’s visitors, and tomorrow’s.
Cary Carson, vice president of research |
Our programs in the Historic
Area, under the interim leadership of Cary Carson, vice
president of research, and Ron Hurst, vice president of
collections and museums, have been substantially restructured
and refined. The result, which would not have been achieved
without the patience, cooperation, and commitment of Historic
Area employees, is a more coherent, accountable, and efficient
management structure and, very important, a more focused
Historic Area experience for our visitors. It is an experience
that increasingly emphasizes as a first priority the quality
of our presentations. This important evolution is sure
to continue under the leadership of Rex Ellis, who recently
accepted the newly created post of vice president of the
Historic Area. Until this past June the chairman of the
division of cultural history at the Smithsonian Institution’s
National Museum of American History, Dr. Ellis is a former director of Colonial
Williamsburg’s Department of African-American Interpretation
and Presentations. Once a costumed interpreter himself, he brings
invaluable experience at Colonial Williamsburg and in the museum
world to his new assignment.
Another important component of Colonial Williamsburg’s
educational programs is our popular satellite-based distance
learning programs, better known as electronic field trips.
One million American students each year register to interact
with Colonial Williamsburg through these live, televised programs
and an additional four million or more watch our electronic
field trips on PBS stations and other educational channels
across the country. Although not a substitute for a visit
to the Historic Area, the field trips offer an exciting means
of extending the Foundation’s educational reach.
Ron Hurst, vice president of collections and museums |
Here in Williamsburg our museums have enjoyed
the popularity of several new exhibitions over the last
year, including the outstanding “James Hampton’s
Throne of the Third Heaven,” on loan from the Smithsonian
National Museum of American Art, and “Toy Trains
from the Carstens Collection,” a delightful display
of vintage model trains that brought record numbers of
visitors to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum
during Christmas 2000. Visitors to the DeWitt Wallace
Decorative Arts Museum continued to enjoy “Furniture
of the American South,” which is scheduled to begin
a two-year national tour in 2002. Wallace Museum visitors
also were treated to a number of new exhibitions, including
“Curtains, Cases and Covers: Textiles for the American
Home, 1700-1840,” and “Ordering the Wilderness,”
an unusual exploration into the world of eighteenth-century
surveying.
Colonial Williamsburg was strengthened considerably this
past year with the consolidation under one umbrella, the Colonial
Williamsburg Company, of our business units: Colonial Williamsburg’s
hotels and restaurants; the retail, licensing, and catalog
products programs; and our commercial real estate operations
(principally Merchants Square). The Company is a wholly owned
business subsidiary of the Foundation. Its new president and
chief executive officer, Ned Dunn, former president of Harris
Teeter, Inc., will be guiding a transition to a unified structure
that links all of our marketing, sales, and business functions
for added efficiency and more effective coordination. The
objective of the businesses is to provide maximum financial
support for the Foundation’s educational programs while
enabling us to deliver to our visitors and guests hospitality
and shopping experiences that are distinctive and are faithful
to the special nature of this place.
The new, 300-room Woodlands hotel under construction |
Major construction projects at Colonial
Williamsburg’s principal hotel and visitor facilities,
including an expanded and enhanced Visitor Center, a new,
300-room Woodlands hotel, and a complete restoration and
renovation of the venerable Williamsburg Inn, have been
designed with the same determination to provide top quality
hospitality and service to our visitors and guests. A
multi-year planned preservation initiative in the Historic
Area is intended to ensure that Williamsburg’s extraordinary
original and restored buildings continue to receive the
painstaking care they deserve, which not only is important
to the visitors’ experience but also is a major stewardship
responsibility.
At the end of 2000, Bob Taylor, longtime vice president and
treasurer of Wesleyan University, was appointed senior vice
president for finance and administration at Colonial Williamsburg,
with responsibility for such vital functions as budget, accounting,
investments, human resources, information technology, operations,
and capital projects. He and his able colleagues already are
making significant progress in increasing efficiency of operations,
enhancing coordination among officers with complementary responsibilities,
and ensuring a high level of quality in all support activities.
Another important staff addition is Jeanne Zeidler as the
Foundation’s director of community cultural affairs,
a new position developed in cooperation with the College of
William and Mary. This exciting move builds on the already
strong relationship between our two institutions and with
the City of Williamsburg. Jeanne Zeidler’s efforts are
bound to add to the richness of community life, and of a visit
to Williamsburg, by providing more cultural programming, taking
advantage of the impressive talent at the Foundation and the
College, and welcoming visiting performers as well.
 Many
of these programs will take place at the newly renovated Kimball
Theatre, formerly the Williamsburg Theatre, which opens this
fall in Merchants Square after a complete restoration and
renovation made possible by longtime Colonial Williamsburg
benefactors Bill and Gretchen Kimball of Belvedere, California.
The Kimballs donated $3.3 million for the project, which will
include a small screening room in addition to a 400-seat main
theater. It is one of a number of recent enhancements to Merchants
Square, the most notable of which is the new William and Mary
Bookstore, operated by Barnes and Noble. Both the bookstore
and the theater are realizations of the vision shared by Colonial
Williamsburg Senior Vice President Rick Nahm and William and
Mary President Tim Sullivan to bridge more effectively the
two educational institutions that set Williamsburg apart for
residents and visitors alike.
Merchants Square was hardly the only aspect of Colonial Williamsburg
to benefit this past year from the generosity of Bill and
Gretchen Kimball. In December 2000 the Kimballs donated $15
million to support the Foundation’s education programs,
one of
the largest gifts ever made to Colonial Williamsburg and among
the most significant contributions in support of history education
for young people in this country. The William and Gretchen
Kimball Young Patriots Fund will contribute to livelier classrooms
across the country through support of the electronic field
trip program, teacher training in colonial history through
the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute, and youth programming,
including the Foundation’s renowned Fife and Drum Corps
and the young interpreters program.
The Young Patriots Fund represents a continuing fulfillment
of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.’s vision for Colonial Williamsburg,
“That the future may learn from the past.” And it
reflects the Kimballs’ extraordinary generosity, their
concern for more appealing history education for the nation’s
young people, and their love of Colonial Williamsburg.
The Kimball gift moved the Campaign for Colonial Williamsburg,
the Foundation’s first-ever comprehensive fund-raising
effort, dramatically forward. The Campaign, which stood at
$231 million at the end of 2000, is being launched publicly
in late September of this year and is a cornerstone of Colonial
Williamsburg’s seventy-fifth anniversary celebration
this year. More than 87,000 donors supported the Foundation
most generously last year. Thanks to each of you we had, for
the third straight year, record-breaking fund-raising results.
The $47 million in total gifts and grants represented a remarkable
44 percent increase over 1999 and was the best year for total
gifts since Colonial Williamsburg began its formal fund-raising
program in 1976. While all of you have been supporting us
with your donations over the past year, many of you have supplemented
your financial support by giving your time as well. More than
900 adult volunteers and 125 junior volunteers contributed
more than 103,000 hours to Colonial Williamsburg in 2000,
providing us with the resources and assistance necessary to
execute the many initiatives involved in the transitions of
the past year.
Looking to the next year and beyond, we will be continuing
the same strategic directions and principles that have guided
Colonial Williamsburg’s actions to this point. They include:
• Connecting visitors with America’s past
• Being a national model for responsible historic
preservation, collecting and conservation,
history education, and educational outreach
• Deepening relationships with constituents, especially
our friends and donors
• Continuing to recruit and maintain a talented and
dedicated workforce, and
• Demonstrating ongoing fiscal responsibility.
You can expect us, however, to put an even greater emphasis
on furthering our core educational mission and on giving our
programs more focus.
 The
Foundation’s aspirations to attract and retain a high
quality staff, enhance our educational programs, and improve
our facilities resulted in significant short-term financial
pressure, as reflected by the Foundation’s $10.6 million
operating deficit in calendar year 2000. This shortfall was
anticipated when the Board of Trustees decided to make the
facilities investments and to improve compensation levels
for staff. Our longer-term goal must be to maintain a condition
of financial equilibrium in which revenues and expenditures
are balanced, adequate funding is provided to maintain and
preserve our facilities and collections, and the purchasing
power of the endowment is preserved. This will require careful
stewardship of our existing resources and continuing support
from friends of Colonial Williamsburg. The overarching goal,
of course, is to maintain the long-term viability of this
wonderful asset so that future generations will continue to
learn from the past.
Most of all, we must take great care that we preserve the
type of Colonial Williamsburg experience that, thirty-four
years ago, inspired a young Mexican girl named Terri Fornelli
to become an American.
Colin G. Campbell
President |
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Historic Triangle