The San Diego Air & Space Museum's very own Jim Weir has been nominated as the San Diego County RSVP Volunteer of the Year!

Some cultural institution volunteers do hard work purely out of love—love of the work, love of the patrons, love of the institution itself—and there’s no better example of that sort of volunteer than James Weir of the San Diego Air and Space Museum. Jim joined our San Diego Aerospace Museum (as it was then known) in January of 1984. It really was a different time: at the beginning of 1984, Reagan had won re-election as President, U.S. inflation had only just fallen to manageable levels, the world economy was rebounding from the stagnation of the 1970s and early 1980s, and the Cold War was still in full—even worrying—swing.  In 1984, the San Diego Aerospace Museum was in its fourth year at the refurbished Ford building in Balboa Park, having rebuilt and recovered from a devastating fire in 1978. The Museum needed good, long-term volunteers; we had no idea how great a deal we were getting.

Jim immediately began work in the Restoration Shop located in the basement of the building. Jim, a Navy veteran and worker with the U.S. Navy and with Ryan and Consolidated aircraft companies, had over forty years of experience in aircraft instrumentation, especially with Navy aircraft from the Grumman Hellcat of 1944 to the Grumman Tomcat of 1984. Of course, Jim immediately became the museum’s recognized expert for aircraft instruments. Museum aircraft, whether original or reproduction, require authentic flight instruments. Jim has always been proud of his work in this regard—and all of our museum aircraft are beautifully detailed, with particular attention to instrumentation.

Jim Weir knows that a “traditional” museum can seem cold and boring, and he’ll have none of it. When he occasionally finds little to do in the basement Restoration Shop, he’ll join the visitors on the Museum main gallery floor, offering them technical information and anecdotes about the various aircraft they happen to be near. Jim’s genial manner and obvious subject matter expertise are always welcome and disarming, and make the visitor experience at the Air & Space Museum more human and genuine.

Cheerful and active at nearly 95 years of age, Jim is something of a brand symbol for us. With over 9,000 hours of documented volunteer hours since 1994 (our conservative estimate of actual hours would be over 13,500 hours), Jim has given a lot of himself to the San Diego Air & Space Museum and to the community as a whole. He does it out of love—and we love him right back.