THE INTERVIEW: REMEMBERING PAN AM: PETE RUNNETTE!

200 Park Avenue: A Symbol of "The American Dream"!
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My final Guest here on THE INTERVIEW is also a friend of mine. C.W. 'Pete' Runnette is President of The Pan Am Historical Foundation. Pete's a great guy and his role is to lead the Foundation to what Juan Trippe himself would refer to as "the next step" and under his guidance we are moving very deliberately to build out both our membership--and a Museum in Miami! Former Navy Aviatior Runnette is well qualified, having spent 21 years with Pan Am. He was managing director of Germany, and general manager of Pan Am's Berlin-based IGS (Internal German System) for five years. In addition, he served as vice president of Pan Am's Atlantic Division in London, comprising sales and services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, along with Pan Am's worldwide marketing and sales as senior vice president of marketing. I felt it was very appropriate to schedule my sit-down discussion with Pete last in this series celebrating the 15th Anniversary of Pan Am's shut-down because the airline is inextricably woven into the fabric of American Culture forever; it will never fade. And certainly a part of our collective efforts as volunteers is to make sure it never will. Accordingly, Pete's insight will leave all of you with a sense of where The Pan Am Historical Foundation is today. And that is a fitting place to wind up as we move forward!

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MM: Could you brief us on the goals of the Pan Am Historical Foundation?

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RUNNETTE: Our website is at www.PanAm.org. We have thousands of boxes materials (at The University of Miami RIchter Library). However, they don't have all the resources that they would like to be able to catalogue and make thos available toi reserchers and scholars. So, we'd like to be able to supplement their funding, whenever we can. And the Smithsonian has a lot of our stuff. That requires a little TLC. Quite clearly, what I think we have to work on is those who follo on after those of us who worked for the company for a large number of years, who are now in responsible positions with the organization. How do we get our children interested in it? That's what we're working on right now, trying to come up with more of a forward--looking agenda that has some appeal, not just historically to young people today, bit something that is related to the current environment. And I think there's a lot of different ways to do that. THe Dinner Key Idea was a good one. Apparently, at least two different times, the City of Miami designated Dinner Key as a museum site for Pan Am, or maybe for more than just Pan Am, maybe for other aviation entities in Miami. So, the committe is trying to come up with alternatives and possibilities.

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MM: Well, I know that we have had some fruitful discussions with the City of Miami for some real estate and have an architectural rendering. Will there be enough space?

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RUNNETTE: I'm not a hundred percent sure. I think probably that the archival material is not something that would be displayed in a museum. Within the archives is a wonderful trove of picture, which is something that could go up. The Miami Historical Society has a number of three-dimensional stuff of our models and things like that which could go into a museum. And we'd like to display the things that we have. The museum has promised to put up some of it at Washington Dulless. We have some things on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, and at the San Francisco International Airport. There is some benefit in having some of it spread around, so more people get to see it.

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MM: There are number of Pan Am-related organizations in existence today around the globe. Do these have a relationship with the Pan Am Historical Foundation?

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RUNNETE: Yes. One of the things that we have been working on is what we call a 'Family Tree Project'. Around the world in different countries there are all manner of Pan Am organizations. Now, whether it can be pulled together is open to question. But certainly what we want to be able to do is to establish some sort of loose link between thge Historical Foundation and all of the other Pan Am alumni organizations.

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