tourism industry in southwestern Pennsylvania. The commission identified the cities of Altoona and Johnstown as potential focal points for the new tourist industry. As part of the program, the Railroaders Memorial Museum collaborated with officials from the National Park Service to renovate tourist facilities at the nearby Horseshoe Curve. The $5.8 million renovations were completed in 1992 with the dedication of a new visitors center to be operated by the museum. Museum officials also collaborated with agents from America's Industrial Heritage Project to seek a larger space for the Railroaders Memorial Museum. In 1990, the museum expressed interest in moving to the nearby Master Mechanics Building. The four-floor brick office building had originally been constructed by the Pennsylvania Railroad, with sections of the building dating to 1882. It had last been occupied by Conrail and vacated in 1984. The $12 million project was funded by the National Park Service, the Federal Highway Administration, and a state grant. Bureaucracy and natural disasters delayed the project and briefly plunged the museum into a fiscal crisis. Grand opening ceremonies were finally held on April 25, 1998. Management changes In May 2002, a new member of the board of directors—Dean McKnight, a senior vice president at M&T Bank—alerted his fellow board members that the museum was dangerously close to insolvency. An internal audit showed that the museum had maxed out its line of credit and was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Despite public reports showing that the museum had been steadily losing money since its reopening in 1998, the board expressed shock upon learning that they couldn't "afford to open the doors." The eleven other members of the board soon resigned. The new board members hired the Westsylvania Heritage Corporation, another descendant of America's Industrial Heritage Project, to run the museum, and approved drastic measures to keep the museum afloat. They cut the operating budget and laid off more than half of the museum's employees. The paid services were largely replaced with volunteer labor. They began to seek more revenue by hosting events and renting the museum's facilities. The museum gradually reduced its outstanding debt. In 2007, the board transferred museum operations to the Salone Management Group, which had previously organized concerts at the museum as part of its events programming. Board members and the outgoing executive director cited company's greater financial resources as reasoning for the transfer. In 2010, Salone Management