As Preservation Maryland looks forward to the opportunities of 2021 and celebrates its 90th anniversary, it does so with a trio of new team members prepared to help tackle new projects and challenges.
To meet the growing needs of Smart Growth Maryland, a program of Preservation Maryland, Ruby Nwaebube joined the team in early January as the organization’s first full-time Advocacy Associate. Ruby’s work will focus on expanding the advocacy capacity of the organization as well as researching innovative policy solutions to smart growth and preservation challenges at the local, state and federal level. Ruby is a graduate of the University of Virginia and prior to joining the Preservation Maryland team enjoyed a diverse range of experiences from documenting African-American historical sites to developing augmented reality and educational simulation games.
The exponential growth of the Campaign for Historic Trades and the launch of its new initiative to establish registered federal apprenticeships for historic trades resulted in the hiring of Natalie Henshaw. Henshaw is an accomplished historic trades’ professional with a background in instructional design and curriculum development. A graduate of Savannah Technical College’s Historic Preservation and Restoration Program, Natalie has worked in hands-on preservation with various non-profits, construction companies, and federal agencies. Natalie previously served on numerous projects with HistoriCorps and founded a preservation company in Savannah, Georgia, specializing in window restoration and historic masonry.
From Jonathan Street to City Dock in Annapolis, Preservation Maryland’s rejuvenated historic property redevelopment program – Revolving Fund – has gone from programmatic concept to bricks-and-mortar preservation in the matter of a few short months. To support the unprecedented growth of the program, Laura Houston was selected to serve as the organization’s first full-time Historic Property Redevelopment Manager.
Laura holds degrees from both the New York University and Texas State University and prior to joining Preservation Maryland, she worked as a Historical Sites Specialist for the Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources. Laura also served as Research Associate for the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, a statewide preservation non-profit, where she oversaw research projects and assisted in writing and editing organization publications.
Collectively, these three new employees bring years of experience and a diversity of backgrounds to their respective roles – and will help shape the future of the organization and its many new projects and programs. Sustaining this growth – from expanding historic trades’ development to investing in the rehabilitation of historic buildings and broadening our smart growth reach, will require sustained and expanded fundraising – but we are confident that the relevance of our work and the tangible results of our efforts will make the case to our generous donors.
The growth of the organization has been made possible thanks to the generous support of individual donors, private foundations and public grants targeted at investing in smart growth, historic trades and property redevelopment.