Now that it's officially announced as not me, I am VERY happy to announce I was in the running for this job for most of last year, and ultimately lost the bid to a team that I would be happy to lose to, every day of the week.
It was an honor to be asked to bid, an honor to get as far as I did (I was just told by Gary Kerr that in the end it was between myself and ILM!!), and I am eager to see the Enterprise restored, in all of her glory later this Summer.
I want a time machine, to go back to 1979 and tell younger-me that one day I would be considered alongside ILMers to restore the original Enterprise model for the Smithsonian. I cannot think of a cooler thing.