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National Aviation Heritage Area

NAHA names Mackensie Wittmer Executive Director

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Mackensie Wittmer

Mackensie Wittmer, deputy director of the National Aviation Heritage Alliance (NAHA),  has accepted the position of executive director effective Aug. 22, the NAHA board of trustees has announced. She succeeds Anthony “Tony” Sculimbrene, who is retiring.

Wittmer joined NAHA as deputy director in August 2014. Prior to that, she was development researcher at the Dayton Art Institute from 1999 to 2002. For the next six years, she was associate director of advancement research and development at Wright State University.
Wittmer is an active volunteer with the Dayton Metro Library, Destination Imagination, and Oakwood City Schools. Recent volunteer experience includes serving as co-chair of the Oakwood City School District’s levy campaign in 2013, Harman Elementary Parent Teacher Organization board member in Oakwood from 2015 to 2017, board member and past chair of the Oakwood Historical Society from 2004 to 2016. She was a member of Leadership Dayton’s class of 2016.
Wittmer holds a Master of Arts degree in public and applied history from Wright State and a bachelor of Arts degree in history and political science from Miami University.
She lives in Oakwood with her husband and two children.
NAHA is the business name for the Aviation Heritage Foundation, Inc., an Ohio 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit corporation. Sculimbrene has been its executive director since 2004 and was executive director of its predecessor, the Dayton Aviation Heritage Commission.

Tony Sculimbrene

The federal commission was created by Congress and charged with supporting the development of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park and the restoration of the Wright Dunbar Historic District. The commission had a legislative mandate to identify a follow-on organization to carry on the work of preserving Dayton’s aviation heritage once it sunset in December, 2003. Sculimbrene was tasked by the commissioners to find a permanent successor to the commission, and to that end he advocated for the creation of a U. S. National Heritage Area to preserve and promote the aviation heritage of the region, and the establishment of NAHA as its management entity.

In 2004, Congress established the National Aviation Heritage Area around Dayton and designated NAHA as its management entity. Sculimbrene directed the foundation’s incorporation, drafted its General Management Plan and secured over $4 million of non-federal funding for its operations since it was established.
In 2006, under his leadership, NAHA received the Mathile Community Award.
From 1990 to 1999, Sculimbrene, a civil engineer, was the Base Environmental Manager for the 8,000-acre Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he directed $230 million in contract work to clean up groundwater contamination and restore base waste disposal sites. In the preceding years, he managed an annual $30 million construction and contract services program as chief of engineering and construction management.
Sculimbrene is a Greene County Park District commissioner, president of the Xenia Rotary Club and a member of the Wright Dunbar Inc. board of trustees. He and his wife live in Xenia. They have two grown children in Massachusetts and Washington State. 
About NAHA
The National Aviation Heritage Alliance (NAHA) is a nonprofit chartered by Congress in 2004 as the management entity for the National Aviation Heritage Area, a region of national historical importance. It includes Montgomery, Greene, Miami, Clark, Warren, Champaign, Shelby, and Auglaize counties in Ohio. The Heritage Area is one of 49 National Heritage Areas in a program administrated by the National Park Service, and the only one dedicated to aviation heritage. Visit aviationheritagearea.org for more information.