The Final Push
After years of planning and months of demolition, construction, fabrication, and installation, the iNSPIRE: 50 Years of Innovation from Apple team entered the final stretch with a deadline that could not move: the exhibition needed to be ready for BYTE, the museum’s annual fundraiser in late March, and for Apple’s 50th anniversary on April 1.
For a while, that deadline looked iffy.
The plumbing crisis had dramatically compressed the schedule. The last trenches were filled only about 10 weeks before opening. Floors had to be repaired, walls cleaned and painted, and carpet installed roughly six weeks before opening. Then came the installation of more than 2,000 artifacts, graphics, art, AV, IT, interactive experiences, and everything else required to bring a 20,000-square-foot exhibition to life.
“There were trades literally working on top of trades,” Pelaia recalls. “We used a lot of plastic and ram board to protect things.”
Communication, prioritization, flexibility, and a willingness to jump in and help became essential. So did late nights and weekends.
When the Details Became the Story
Some of the most memorable challenges were surprisingly small—or surprisingly large.
Take the balloon.
The museum’s founder had repeatedly told Pelaia, “I have a piece of the balloon.” She pictured an approximately 8-by-8-foot piece. Instead, she discovered a section more than 20 feet high. With a ceiling grid just under 12 feet, the team decided to mount it on a wall, but part of the colorful Apple logo still wouldn’t fit.
Pelaia began searching for carpet tiles that matched the missing red, purple, and blue sections. After hours of searching, she found a manufacturer whose tiles looked like a good match on the screen and ordered samples. They were a perfect match to the brand colors. With the help of ChatGPT, the number of the colored tiles needed was calculated because they were slightly smaller than the exhibition’s primary carpet tiles. The flooring team then cut the tiles to the exact shape of the logo, extending what didn’t fit onto the wall onto the floor.
Other moments made the exhibition feel real in stages. First, carpet began going down. Then large vinyl wall coverings appeared. Next came the AV installations. Display cases were rolled in and artifacts arranged.
But the moment that really made it real was BYTE, the museum’s annual fundraiser.
“Something about gowns, tuxes, champagne, and an endless amount of compliments made it finally feel really real,” Pelaia says.
A Team Effort
The exhibition was a true team effort. Founders Lonnie and Karin Mimms, Consulting Creative Director David Laufer, project designer Danny Shub, the Museum Collections team Ben Schmidt and Deb Cozzone, IT leads David Hackney and Joe Sikes, Executive Director Rena Youngblood, Mike Wichman, Issouf Dabre, Tommy Grimes, and many others worked alongside the various trades and vendors.
“Seamlessly” is how Pelaia describes the collaboration. Many of the team leads had worked together before, and everyone maintained what she calls a respectful, get-it-done approach.
Text messages, phone calls, email, shared drives, a command-center whiteboard, and good old-fashioned printed plans kept everyone moving in the same direction.
The experience also taught Pelaia a great deal about construction. While she had spent her IBM career managing events and trade shows, actually building a building was new territory. Electrical, plumbing, fire safety, HVAC, and other areas required her to learn quickly.
“I learned a lot from the trades,” she says. “The respect from the trades, explaining things to me in a way I could understand, relay, and act on the info, made a lasting impression on me.”
And there was humor, too. “Laughter, a few jokes, and pranks help with stress relief!”
The Finish Line
Looking back, Pelaia is most proud that the team met its deadline.
They opened for BYTE27 and for Apple’s 50th anniversary on April 1.
- iNSPIRE represents another step forward for the Mimms Museum, expanding its ability to reach new audiences and creating a foundation for future growth. Apple enthusiasts helped expand the museum’s membership, and the museum is now preparing to integrate artifacts and exhibits from the Living Computers Museum+Labs collection.
But for Pelaia, the biggest accomplishment may be what visitors experience when they walk through the doors: an exhibition that blends technology, art, history, and interactive experiences—and it does so because an enormous team worked together to make it happen.
The experience reinforced one lesson she would pass along to anyone tackling a retrofit: “I’d recommend thoroughly checking the plumbing way earlier in a retrofitted build-out,” she says. “From the ground up” should be “from the underground up.”
It’s a lesson learned the hard way—and one of many stories hidden behind the finished walls of iNSPIRE. And while we didn’t get everything 100% done before we opened, we’re close and finishing up on the last few artifact labels and signs.
