The location has made it hard for the lighthouse and museum to get a sufficient share of the 35 million visitors to the city each year, she said.

Since 2005, Mu-
chanic has been focused on eliminating the nonprofit's budget deficit, which then was $66,000. It dropped to $33,000 the next year and $15,000 in 2007.

Lighthouse visits in July were up 38 percent over the previous year, and August visits were up 40 percent.

"I feel we're benefiting from people's decisions to vacation closer to home," she said. "But we did feel the economic impact in the gift shop, which was down $6,000 for the summer and for the year is off 10 percent."

Muchanic has drawn on her marketing background to use events, coupons and other incentives to lure visitors. Current promotions highlight the N.J. Lighthouse Challenge, in which lighthouse society members try to visit all the lights in the state Oct. 18 and 19.

She even became a minister in 2007 so she can perform weddings and civil unions at the lighthouse.

Muchanic came to the region with her sister in the early 1980s to work at WWAC-TV53. When it closed within a year, she joined the marketing department at the Sands Casino Hotel.

After a few years she moved to the Showboat Casino Hotel, where she continued in marketing for 14 years, and then was briefly at Tropicana Casino and Resort.

In 2001, Muchanic became tournament coordinator of the ShopRite LPGA Classic - an intense job with 1,200 volunteers, 53 different committees and 23 vendors.

"People used to ask how can one event be a full-time job for eight people, but it was," she said. "A tournament has so many unseen layers of operation, it's an incredible feat to put on."

She already was on the board of the lighthouse at the time. She also serves on boards for the annual Arthritis Walk, the Arthritis Foundation of N.J. and the Advocates for N.J. History, as well as doing volunteer work for the United Way.

Muchanic said she was thrilled to accept the challenge of building visitorship to the restored Absecon Light. Her tiny staff includes just one other full-time worker, a director of education, and a lightkeeper and bookkeeper who each work part-time.

The latest development in the lighthouse neighborhood - construction of the massive Revel casino hotel - is promising and challenging.

"They're one block away from us, and they'll bring a lot more people to this end of town," Muchanic said. "We're thrilled to have them in our neighborhood."

She said Revel Chairman Kevin DeSanctis has spent time at the lighthouse and the company has mounted a camera on it to oversee the project.

But Revel's tower - or towers - also will block the lighthouse from the Boardwalk, so Muchanic is working to create a path from the walk to the light, hopefully with an iron archway and plantings.

The lighthouse is averages 17,000 visitors a year. Parking and the museum are free, while admission to climb the lighthouse is $7 for adults and $4 for ages 4 to 12.

Muchanic hopes as visitors increase, and spend more when the economy turns around, the organization will not just break even, but earn the $50,000 needed to renovate the porch.

E-mail Kevin Post:

KPost@pressofac.com