The Get Inspired! Project - Sime Bertolet

Listen to the interview here!

Sime Bertolet
 

 

Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece. Welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I am with Sime Bertolet. Hi, Sime.

Sime Bertolet: How are you, Toni?

Toni: I’m great. Sime, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Sime: My name is Sime Bertolet. I’m the Executive Director of the Historical Society of Berks County, Berks History Center, Henry Janssen Library, and we are located at 940 Center Avenue in Reading, Pennsylvania. We were incorporated in 1869, and with a membership of right at 2,000 members it makes us one of the oldest and largest and most respected historical organizations of our kind in the United States.

Toni: That’s very interesting. Let’s go into the first question of the Project. What does inspiration mean to you?

Sime: Wow. When I thought about this, inspiration really to me is the desire that motivates one to strive to achieve their dreams, their goals, to break away from the status quo, to achieve a greater height, and also to break out of that mold or that mindset that says, “We’ve always done it that way,” but rather to look at different ways to improve oneself, one’s organization in ways that hadn’t been done before.

Toni: If I go back to the original word ‘desire’ that inspiration means to you – and I’m just going to hang on that word ‘desire’ – do you have to be inspired in order to know what that desire is to motivate you?

Sime: No; I think you can achieve self-inspiration. It can also be maybe the desire is garnered by when one looks at a project that they’ve involved in, and they might not know what that project is or what that organization is, but as they become more involved, they see the potential. They see the underlying strengths, the underlying values and principles on which that mission or that organization was built, and that’s the inspiration that says and tells them innately that this is something important. This is something that’s bigger than themselves, then the people that are involved in the organization. It’s something that tells them, “This is something that I want to be involved in, and I want to improve and I want to make better for this and future generations.”

Toni: So it becomes very personal.

Sime: Absolutely personal.

Toni: How do you put that into practice here in Berks County?

Sime: I would look at it as the work that I do. I’ve been the Executive Director of the Historical Society, Berks History Center for about eight years now, and when I came to the organization and began working there, it became evident very early that this was something that was vitally important to this community because it adds to the quality of places, it adds to the quality of life, and makes greater Reading a better place to live.

With all that said, it was also again being incorporated in 1869, 144 years old, and there were things that I thought that we could do better, things that I thought that needed to be improved upon. In that time period and over the last year working with our Board of Directors and some of our new trustees, we have taken on the mission. We’ve done a number of things. We’ve drafted a new mission statement. We have developed a new name, a new logo, and hence a new brand. We’ve developed a new marketing tagline, and one that is I would say more welcoming and more inviting to a contemporary, diverse audience and constituencies that we have here in greater Reading.

Toni: So I take this theme of inspiration off of the Historical Society, correct? If I take it off of there and put it to you …

Sime: Okay.

Toni: You obviously had to have been very inspired to get involved in this organization. What is it that is moving you? What are you passionate about for you that you are putting all of this work and all of this into action?

Sime: Actually, Toni, I really didn’t know much about the organization when I took the position. I was born and reared in the Reading area. I was raised and reared in Greenfields, but I left Reading and Berks County for 28 years and moved back in 2006. In that time, in probably the last eight or ten years that I was gone, I developed a love of history to the point that I went back to the University of Texas at Arlington and earned my Master’s degree in history, as well as a regional archival certification. Moving back to the area because I wanted to be closer to family, as things would happen in life, I was approached by the Board of the Historical Society of Berks County, and they asked me if I would be interested in this position. I said indeed I would, because I wanted to apply the knowledge that I had gotten in my Master’s degree in history.

It was then that I got into the organization and started looking around and started seeing again the bones, the background, the history of this organization, and that’s when I realized that it was something special. It was something that no other county has. They all have historical societies, but what we do at the Berks History Center, Historical Society of Berks County is unique. It is unique to Berks County. Chester County, Lancaster County – they all have their own versions, but we do here is solely, uniquely part of our cultural heritage here in Berks County.

When people come from all 50 states and abroad to use the research materials that we hold in the Henry Janssen Library and Archives and the Berks History Center Museum, I can't tell you how many of them said, “We came here to do research, but we had no idea that this community had the cultural and historical legacy that you do.” When they see the beautiful paintings, when they see the wonderful case clocks, the blanket chest, the folk art that are “unique to Berks County” and different from anyplace else, that’s special. It showcases the best assets that this community has to offer.

Toni: That’s fantastic, because as you said, you did not come back here with the intention to run this. You took your desire that you grew in another state, and now you have absolutely brought that to fruition here with this organization. That’s amazing.

Sime: The stars couldn’t have lined up any better. I don’t know whether you believe in providence …

Toni: Or meaningful coincidences, whatever you want to call it.

Sime: Whatever you want to call it – it was just something that, as I say, the way it melded, the way it meshed together, it was wonderful.

Toni: Who in Berks County inspires you?

Sime: I was thinking about that as well. I’m going to have to go to a historical figure on that. There are many, but when I look at Berks County, two gentlemen that really I think inspire me were that of Thun and Janssen. Founders of Wyomissing Industries, founders of Textile Machine Works, one of the largest textile machinery manufacturers in the United States, Narrow Fabrics, embroidery that went on garments … Textile Machine Works built the machinery for one of their own businesses, Berkshire Knitting, which was the world’s largest manufacturer of full fashion hosiery in the United States at one time.

It was not only that – it was the work that they did. They were the geniuses who planned the borough of Wyomissing, which is one of the first planned, if not the first planned, communities in the United States.

Toni: The first planned community?

Sime: The first planned community in the United States, yes. It was incredible. They had the vision. The work they did on the Reading Hospital, Reading Public Library – they were visionaries. They really knew. They wanted this community to be great.

Toni: Do you take anything from that inspiration for yourself?

Sime: Sure. That’s the model. You look at people like that and say, “What would they do in a situation like this?” and try and do the best you can. I think they are very inspirational. Again, it’s not really about themselves, it was about, “How do we make this community a better place to live?”

Toni: What would you like your legacy to be?

Sime: I’d like my legacy to be that Sime, as the Director of the Berks History Center, brought that organization into the 21^st Century and made it more welcoming, more inviting to Berks County/greater Reading area as a whole.

Toni: Sime, thank you so much for doing the work that you’re doing and bringing that passion to fruition here in Berks County. Thank you for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.

Sime: Great to be a part of it!