Hermosa Beach Museum honored with national accreditation
By Laura Garber
by Laura Garber
Surfboard and beach volleyball collections, Tongva artifacts and signage from some of Hermosa Beach’s historic businesses are among the reasons the Hermosa Beach Museum was recently accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
Of the over 500 museums in California, only 79 are AAM accredited. Nationwide just 3% of the country’s 35,000 museums are accredited.
The accreditation puts the Hermosa Beach Museum in the company of such giants as the J. Paul Getty Museum, De Young Museum and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
“It’s fairly unusual to be accredited to begin with,” said Ricardo Reznichek, a museum board member and founder. “But to be as small as we are and to meet all the standards is pretty unique.”
“Earning this accreditation caps a five-year journey, and it’s a real tribute to the hard work and
dedication of our staff, docents and volunteers,” said Greg McNally, Hermosa Beach Museum
President, in an August 11, press release. “It also strengthens our hand as we move forward with our expansion — giving us greater credibility with funders and the community as we build Hermosa Beach’s history and a home that matches its legacy.”
To receive AAM accreditation, museums must be open to the public at least 1,000 hours a year, have at least one full-time, paid staff member, catalog 80% or more of their permanent collection and have a full-time director.
The museum must undergo an arduous process of document verification, financial reporting, and inspection by an AAM team.
AAM museums must be reaccredited every 10 years.
In spring 1987, a group of residents including Rick Learned, Reznichek, Patricia Gazin, Bunny Seawright, Bill Schnieder, Viva Stroyke, Eddie Webber, Sue Horger and Larry Gray met at Stroyke’s house on The Strand, at “The Foot of Longfellow” to discuss founding of the Hermosa Beach Historical Society.
The museum opened in March 1991 in classroom 7 of the former Pier Avenue Junior High School. In 2007, it expanded into the former school’s woodshop.
HBM has become the only accredited museum in the South Bay.
“We tried a couple of times to get some small grants, and we had been successful a few times. But we recognized that to get major grants for programming wasn’t easy. People are only interested if you are accredited,” Reznichek said. “People don’t want to spend money if they think you’re a flash in the pan.”
The museum created a task force in 2021 to seek accreditation. The process required a self-study application, which totaled 90 pages.
In 2024, Dr. Lara Godbille, director of the US Navy Seabee Museum in Port Hueneme, signed off on a professional recommendation letter required for the application.
In 2025 two east-coast museum professionals representing AAM offered feedback on updating HBM’s Code of Ethics and Strategic Institutional Plan.
“If anybody had fallen off this bandwagon, we would not have made it across the finish line,” Jamie Erickson, the museum’s Executive Director said.
“It’s great for legitimizing the museum, and to demonstrate we are doing what’s best for the community. It also helps us look outside the community, we are now part of a larger set of museums that are applying the same standards,” Ryan Basford, the Museum’s Program and Education Manager said. “It helps us ensure we are doing the best we can.”
“There’s hardly anybody of our size, scale and resources that are accredited, it is phenomenal,” Pete Hoffman, a board member of the Museum said. “We have made a commitment to best practices in every aspect of how the museum runs its operations. It may not be at the scale of the Smithsonian, but we share those same standards. It’s a classic Hermosa Beach story, if we’re gonna do it, let’s do it well.”
Erickson says the Museum will celebrate the accreditation with a community open-house in the fall.
The Museum will host its 10th annual gala at St. Cross church on August 22, at 6 p.m. For tickets visit hbmuseum.org. ER
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