Walker News Archive
Grandparent of Alumni Brings Air Museum and Education Center to Cobb County.
Bob Ormsby is the grandparent of alumnus Richard "RJ" Daniel, Jr. ('01) and alumna Kimberly Daniel, ('04). Mr. Ormsby is also the father of Walker faculty members Robin Daniel, Director of Technology and Marka Ormsby, IT specialist and database manager.
The article below is reprinted with permission of the Marietta Daily Journal.
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Air Force officials expected to sign property lease today
Tuesday, March 29, 2005 3:08 AM EST
By Seth Stern, Marietta Daily Journal Staff Writer
MARIETTA - After years of discussion, plans are moving forward for a museum that someday will display the aircraft and history of Marietta's Bell Bomber and Lockheed-Martin plants.
Air Force officials will visit Marietta today to survey land that will be used for the construction of the Marietta Aeronautical Museum and Education Center. Cobb County applied to lease the 15.5-acre tract near the intersection of South Cobb Drive and Atlanta Road from the Air Force in late 2004, said Bob Ash, director of Public Services for Cobb County.
The county received word in February that the Air Force planned to approve the application.
"The land is critical because, although we've had a lot of excellent support, we have all kinds of responses that it's a great idea but where are you going to build it?" said Bob Ormsby, president of the museum's board of directors and former president of the Lockheed-Georgia Co. "(Having the land) is absolutely vital before you get any major donations."
During today's visit - which Ash said had been scheduled for March 8 but was postponed because of the labor dispute at Lockheed - Dave Dickson of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio will inspect the site to draw up landlines for the property and work out the details of the lease. Wright-Patterson handles all Air Force real estate transactions nationwide.
Ash said he expects the lease to be a "fee-simple" transaction that will cost only about $1 per year.
Once the lease has been reviewed by the Cobb Board of Commissioners, the county will sublease the land to the museum's board of directors, which will be responsible for fund-raising and construction, Ash said.
About $10 million will be needed for the first phase of construction, which Ormsby hopes will begin in about a year, with a 25,000-square-foot facility up-and-running in two to three years. A second phase will follow, which will require another $10 million.
Fund-raising efforts are currently in their beginning stages, but Ormsby said the museum has already received "generous support" from Marietta City Schools, Cobb EMC and Georgia Power, among others, totaling about $170,000.
Marietta Daily Journal Staff Photo by Bret Gerbe
(Bob Ormsby, President of the Marietta Air Museum Board of Directors and Stacy Brown, Director of Development are shown above)
Cobb County has approved a grant of $500,000 to be given to the museum's board of directors once they raise $2 million.
Ormsby said the concept of displaying planes produced at the Bell and Lockheed plants was proposed by Coy Short, now a member of the museum's board of directors, about 20 years ago. In 2002, the museum was finally incorporated following the formation of its current board.
The museum, Ormsby said, will contain airplanes and other artifacts organized to document the role that aviation has played in Cobb County, from the opening of the Bell Aircraft plant in the early 1940s to the current Lockheed-Martin plant.
The museum already has a B-29 bomber and an AC-130 combat plane ready for display, and the directors hope to acquire several more aircrafts in the future, Ormsby said.
The accompanying education center will offer programs for local students designed to emphasize problem solving and critical thinking by exploring the issues Cobb faced as the aviation industry prompted its expansion from a rural county of 38,000 to a bustling metropolitan area with more than 640,000 residents.
Ormsby said that the museum's board of directors already has held discussions with Steve Cheshire of the Cobb Education Consortium, and Jeri Hatler, director of Marietta's new magnet school, to explore ways for the museum to collaborate with area schools.
"There is an economic development potential but more importantly there's an educational potential for our school children," said Cobb County Chairman Sam Olens. "This provides a great historical and educational component for our county."
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