The maritime community received a strong challenge from Jeremy Weirich, maritime archaeologist and a staffmember of the Senate Appropriations Committee working for Senator Barbara Mikulski, when he spoke at the 9th Maritime Heritage Conference in Baltimore in September. He implored the participants to come together as one, and speak with a common voice in order to move forward and achieve public support through the political process. The maritime heritage community needs essential funding to do its work, but it is neither vigilant in overseeing the funding it has worked so hard to obtain, nor effective in communicating the importance of its needs. He noted in particular that funding from the National Maritime Heritage Act, slated for heritage grants, was taken over by stronger and more savvy political entities not too long ago.
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