Swigart is founder and chief creative officer of Springboro ad agency DezignHive. She is an alumna of The Modern College of Design in Kettering. A beaming Jessica Barry, that college’s president, was on hand at Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce offices in downtown Dayton Thursday to watch as Swigart’s logo was unveiled.
While the logo was first shown locally Thursday, it is slated to be officially unveiled in Canada next month, at the 70th annual session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly or “PA” in Montréal, Quebec.
From there, a representation of the logo will travel the world, said U.S. Rep Mike Turner, R-Dayton, someone who has been involved with NATO for more than a decade and who pushed to bring the assembly to Dayton next spring.
Turner and Dayton advocates first announced in July that NATO parliamentarians would visit the area next year to mark the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, the agreement reached in November 1995 at the Hope Hotel and Conference Center, just outside Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, to end fighting between Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia.
The event is expected to bring 300 parliamentarians to Dayton, with an expected 1,000 people total.
The official meetings and proceedings of the assembly will be principally downtown, Turner said Thursday. Across the several days of the assembly, he expects events at Carillon Park and at sites associated with the history of the birth of flight and the Wright Brothers, he said. The Dayton Art Institute and the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force are on the agenda.
“They will see the story of the invention of flight here in Dayton, Ohio and how it relates to how the world was changed by the Wright Brothers,” Turner said.
“Good things are going to be happening across the region with a lot of our local partners and our local non-profits,” said Chris Kershner, president and CEO of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce. “It is going to be an exciting time to be in the heart of NATO for 2025.”
Turner served as president of the NATO PA from November 2014 to November 2016. Today he is vice chairman of the assembly’s Defense and Security Committee.
Earlier this month, seven possible logos for NATO PA spring session were unveiled at chamber offices, courtesy of a trio of local artists.
Swigart was among the finalists, with Elizabeth Kimmel, owner of Caraway Design Company, LLC, and Josh Trippier, a member of the marketing team at Wright State University.
NATO officials were expected to help choose the final logo by Thursday, but input from Dayton Daily News readers was also considered. Input on the finalists was accepted at DaytonDailyNews.com until Oct. 18.
Groundwork for the assembly has been well underway. NATO PA conference staff already spent four days in Dayton visiting each possible venue earlier this year. In March, Congress approved a fiscal year 2024 state-foreign operations appropriations bill, which included $2 million requested by Turner for the event.
President Biden signed that bill into law.
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