USS MISSOURI MEMORIAL ASSN. Napoleon Arline III is the volunteer programs manager for the USS Missouri, after serving 12 years in the Navy.

USS Missouri manager
still recruiting --
for volunteers

Napoleon Arline III » The USS Missouri Memorial Association Inc. has hired Napoleon Arline III as its volunteer programs manager. He supervises all volunteer programs at the Battleship Missouri Memorial in Pearl Harbor. He most recently served as volunteer coordinator/internship manager and training developer for Olelo, the Oahu community broadcast organization. » Arline served in the Navy for 12 years, and was honorably discharged in 2000 as a petty officer 1st class. » Since 1998, the association has been responsible for caring for the Mighty Mo, which served in World War II and the first Persian Gulf war in 1991. The Navy donated it for preservation as a memorial museum.

Question: What is your background?

Answer: Out of high school in Texas, I went to play college football at Lamar University. I subsequently fell out of that program because I was red-shirted. I got into the military then, in 1988. I was in for 12 years. I was in the Gulf War. I was on a ship. I was on the staff here in Pearl Harbor, but I supported through the USS Worden guided-missile cruiser team. After the Gulf I ended up in Patrol Squadron 47 here that was stationed at the former Barbers Point. I left there and went to the naval shipyard intermediate maintenance facility in Pearl Harbor. I stayed there for almost six years, and also served temporary assignments. I got out medically in December 2000. I hurt my back.

Q: What was next?

A: After that I went to work for Olelo. I was a volunteer coordinator there and internship manager. My whole naval career was administration. But I had been doing TV. That's kind of what I had been going after in college, working in television. Before I started full-time for Olelo, I was there part-time as a trainer. I was teaching people how to use the equipment. I had been doing it for years in church here. I worked for a lot of different stations, doing outside work. I did commercials for people. One was for kick boxing, like Tae Bo. I did a small commercial for this guy who washes cars. I was a prop in the show. I helped set up lighting, directing, camera, that kind of thing. Nothing really big, nothing that would get me the big bucks.

Q: What brought you to the Might Mo?

A: This position came open on the Missouri because I had worked with them doing interviews for older veterans and I realized that they had a volunteer position open in the paper and I put in for it. And a lot of the upper management remembered me when I helped them out and getting this out. I understand they had 30 applicants, and I was chosen.

Q: What are the programs that you supervise?

A: The main one is outreach, the award programs, getting people to volunteer, bringing in organizations. Also the military liaison part of it, getting the military to work for us. How do I handle each one of those? Very carefully. Roughly, we bring in about 500 to 600 volunteers a month. I started in December and we've been on the climb every month. That's military and civilian alike, nonprofit organizations and for-profits, church groups, military groups. We've had organizations come in to help. I've had single people call up and say I want to do some work. I've had Eagle Scouts come in. We've got a government community service department. They get a choice where they want to work and they want to work here, because it stands for freedom, freedom at its best. We're getting everything ready right now for Sept. 2, the 60th anniversary of the signing of the surrender of the Japanese on board the American fleet.

Q: What's an example of a program?

A: Right now, I'm starting to organize the adopt-a-space program. That seems to be the way we should be working toward renovating more space as fast as we can to get more things open on board the ship. We're working on the program. We put it on the Web and McNeil Wilson (public relations agency) will do a lot of promotion on it to get it out to all types of organizations and citizens. They'll adopt a space for a year and be responsible for the cleaning of it, the restoration of it. We want to get the areas back to what they looked like. If it's a bunk room, getting it painted, racks made, the color of the tile is the same. Those are ideas I've got in my head that might pass the system.

For those who want to help they can give me a call, at 455-1600 ext. 224. My e-mail is napoleona@ussmissouri.org.