Wingspan

Military Aviation Museum

For two years, from 2013 to 2015, Jonathan Lichtenstein served as the Events and Marketing Manager for the Military Aviation Museum (MAM). His ongoing affiliation with this Virginia Beach, Virginia, institution dates back to 2010 when first he announced at the 2nd-annual “Warbirds Over the Beach” airshow. He has since hosted or helped to produce every aerial exhibition at the MAM. Drawing on his love of aviation, Jonathan continues to entertain international audiences with his informative and informal style of commentary or Plane Speaking.

However, the day-to-day responsibilities of helping to manage one of the world’s largest private collections of antique airworthy military aircraft necessitated a different kind of narrative.

In collaboration with then Museum Director David Hunt (FRSA), operational staff, and a legion of volunteers, Jonathan was directly responsible for scheduling, soliciting, negotiating, planning, and supervising all events, tours, and rentals on the museum’s property.

Jonathan also undertook the promotion of museum events, products, and services, via print, electronic and social media; including exclusive editorial control over the MAM’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. Among his myriad tasks, he also composed press releases and e-blasts, and maintained multiple digital mailing lists and photo archives. At least twice annually, Jonathan led the development of underwriting sponsorship packages for museum air shows and events, surpassing all previous sales records up to that time in 2013.

Besides his penchant for public speaking, Jonathan was a representative of the MAM at presentations by the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Virginia Beach and the South Hampton Roads Museums Forum. Concurrent with his organization of all events held on the museum’s campus, Jonathan shared coordination of the volunteer workforce for staffing on these occasions.

For an archive of his promotional work and development efforts, on behalf of the Military Aviation Museum, please consult the MAM Multimedia tab of this section. You will find a broad survey of his writing for print, e-mail, and social media distributions, including his talents for page layouts and graphic design.

It should be noted that Jonathan single-handedly engineered a dramatic improvement in social media traffic for the MAM: he multiplied Facebook patronage by a factor of 8, over a 12-month period (2013 to 2014), from 8,000 to 64,000 subscribers. By the time of his departure in March, 2015, the total had exceeded 100,000. Under his supervision, the museum’s Facebook page had come to rival that of every other aviation museum in North America, with one notable exception: the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum.

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