Summer hire brightens base museum

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- To cruise through summertime, a local student opted to be a summer hire for the Air Force Flight Test Center Museum. 

Matthew Fox said he wasn't sure what to expect when he reported for duty as a summer hire at the museum -- his first day on his first job. He said he thought he would be filing papers and performing administrative details. 

But on the contrary, the 19-year-old summer hire has been taking down old displays and arranging others to make room for a new round of displays yet to be built. 

"I didn't think I'd be working in the museum setting things up," Mr. Fox said. 

At first, Mr. Fox said he was nervous. 

"I didn't want to break anything," he said. "Cleaning all the models was a lot of work. I had to be very careful, take each one down one by one and had to clean them very carefully -- and there were so many of them." 

Being immersed in hands-on museum projects is better than performing clerical duties, he said. 

The summer hire program allows students to earn money while experiencing work on base before they return to classes in September, said Tony Moore, AFFTC museum technician. 

Mr. Fox learned about the summer hire program from his father who works on base. 

"This is interesting because I don't know what I am going to be doing each day I come in," he said. "Through this experience, I am seeing a lot of new things, meeting a lot of people and getting exposed to a lot of different kinds of work." 

Mr. Fox's contributions are greatly appreciated, Mr. Moore said. Given the breadth of museum activities, a summer hire can expect opportunities to expand beyond office work into a variety of curatorial assistance if they want to. 

"It's the little details in this place that make it special, and he's making things stand out," he said. "The museum looks forward to an ongoing relationship each summer with the summer hire program, especially when the employees are as conscientious as Matt."