Printable Version
National Association for Olmsted Parks Staffers
Effective May 2009
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Jerry Baum
Baltimore, MD Morton J. (Jerry) Baum served as co-chair of NAOP from 2001 - 2005. He joined the board in April 2000, and became chair of the Development Committee. For the past thirteen years, Jerry has been treasurer of a state affiliate, Friends of Maryland's Olmsted Parks and Landscapes, and lives in a neighborhood landscaped by the Olmsted brothers, Roland Park in Baltimore, MD. Jerry has had substantial experience in community work, fund raising, and setting policy for community based organizations as a director or chair. Until 1997, he was the executive director of an independent non-profit, Fund for Educational Excellence, whose mission was to provide resources and program initiatives to strengthen education in the public schools of Baltimore. Before 1984, Jerry worked for the Baltimore Office of Employment Development as special assistant to the director. His early career was as an executive in the men's clothing industry. Jerry was born in Rochester, NY, and grew up there. He has a B.A. degree from Yale University, a master's degree from the School of Business Administration at Harvard University and a Master in Liberal Arts from Johns Hopkins University.
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Ethan Carr
Amherst, MA Ethan Carr is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a visiting professor at Bard Graduate Center in New York. He has previously worked as a designer for the New York City Department of Parks and for private design offices, and as a landscape architect for the National Park Service, where he produced historic landscape research and management plans. He has also taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the University of Virginia. He has masters degrees in art history (Columbia University) and landscape architecture (Harvard University). His book, Wilderness by Design: Landscape Architecture and the National Park Service, received an American Society of Landscape Architects honor award in 1998. He has written numerous other book chapters and articles on the history and design of historic and other cultural landscapes.
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Daniel Chartier
Landscape Architect Montreal, Quebec Province, Canada Daniel Chartier has worked as a landscape architect for the City of Montreal Parks Department for more than 29 years planning numerous large-size public green spaces including Jarry Park, Bellerive Promenade and Visitation Island. Since 1991 he has worked almost exclusively on the restoration of Mount Royal Park to ensure that the rehabilitation process corresponds to Olmsted's original intentions. He is currently working on revisions to the Masterplan for the mountain and park and on a critical retrospective analysis of the planning process to safeguard the mountain's diverse natural and cultural landscapes. He is also overseeing major design work on the Peel Street Entrance, Remembrance Road and the Cote Placide sector of the park. Daniel was the recipient of the 2005 Certificate of Honor, Stewardship category from the Council of the Monuments and Sites of Quebec in recognition of his exceptional contribution towards the preservation and enhancement of major Montreal cultural landscapes including Mount Royal, The Old Port and Visitation Island.
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Eliza Davidson
Principal, Arbutus Design Seattle, WA Eliza is a consulting arborist, landscape designer and licensed architect. She is principal of Arbutus Design LLC, a multidisciplinary practice offering landscape and urban forestry services. Since 1996, Eliza has authored long-term vegetation management plans for several Olmsted heritage parks in Seattle, including Green Lake, Seward, Interlaken and Volunteer Parks/./ She holds a Master of Architecture degree from North Carolina State University and a Master of Forest Resources in Urban Horticulture from University of Washington. Eliza also has completed specialized courses in Historic Preservation and Conservation of Historic Landscapes. She serves on the board of Friends of Seattle's Olmsted Parks, and has been active in the organization since its inception in 1983. Her core interest is restoring and sustaining landscape plantings consistent with historic intent, and extending the Olmsted firm's vision into the modern environment.
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Bridget Fisher
President, The Park People Denver, CO Bridget Fisher is currently the president of The Park People, a small private foundation working to preserve, enhance and advocate for Denver's parks, recreational resources and urban forest. She has been active with The Park People since joining its board in 2001. Previously, Bridget worked in the banking industry until her retirement in 2000. She is a graduate of Vassar College.
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Erin Chute Gallentine
Director of Parks and Open Spaces Brookline, MA Erin has combined expertise in environmental compliance, wetlands restoration, open space protection, park development, strategic partnerships, capital improvements and parks management. As Director of Parks and Open Spaces in Brookline she oversees the operations and services of 17 parks, four sanctuaries, 22 playgrounds, 12 public buildings, 41 traffic islands, two cemeteries and 50,000 public shade trees including Brookline’s portion of the treasured Emerald Necklace Parks. She has served on the Board of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy for four years. She continually strives to develop and implement cost-effective environmental, parks and open space management solutions to engage the community, promote inter/intra-town relationships and improve the stewardship of public lands. Erin has her Master’s of Science in Environmental Engineering from Tufts University.
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Esley Hamilton
Historian and Preservationist, St. Louis County Dept of Parks and Recreation St. Louis, MO Esley Hamilton serves as historian and preservationist for the St. Louis County Department of Parks and Recreation in suburban St. Louis, MO. In this capacity he helps to care for the Department's many historic parks, ranging from the site of the oldest military post west of the Mississippi River to a 1951 house by Frank Lloyd Wright. He also works with the county's Historic Buildings Commission to identify and encourage preservation of historic properties throughout the county, including 91 municipalities and 24 school districts. In 2005, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt gave him the Rozier Award, the state's highest preservation honor. Esley is an affiliate assistant professor in the College of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches historic preservation and the history of landscape architecture. He has been active int he Friends of Tower Grove Park, the 1872 Victorian survival for which he wrote the National Historic Landmark nomination and founded the annual lecture series in 1990. For the past ten years, he has edited the newsletter of the St. Louis Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, one of only two such publishing original research on local architecture. He previously served on the NAOP board from 2001 - 2006.
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Faye B. Harwell, FASLA
ASLA Director, Rhodeside & Harwell, Inc. Alexandria, VA Faye Harwell, a director and co-founder of Rhodeside & Harwell Incorporated, Landscape Architects and Planners, has more than 25 years of experience with the design of award-winning landscape architecture projects, and has been involved with historic preservation projects and park design since 1975. She has worked on projects throughout the United States and Canada, ranging in scale from residential gardens to large-scale urban parks and foreign embassies, in historic preservation, landscape restoration and in ecological sustainable design. She has special expertise in historic landscape evaluation, master planning, preparation of cultural landscape reports, construction documentation, and construction supervision. She has made presentations to the President's Commission of Fine Arts, the National Capital Planning Commission, and various federal, state, and local agencies, and has lectured on and taught historic preservation and ecological design. Faye is registered to practice in PA, VA, NJ, NY, MD and KY. Faye is secretary of NAOP and a former co-chair and founding member of NAOP. She has served on the National Student Awards Jury for the American Society of Landscapes Architects (ASLA) and also is a member of ASLA's committee on Historic Preservation as well as the Cornell University President's Council on Cornell Women. She is the author of several articles in Landscape Architecture magazine and other publications. Faye holds a M.L.A from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in art history from Cornell University
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William Hawkins
William John Hawkins, III, FAIA, is an architect in Portland, OR. His extensive record of community involvement includes: Chairman of the AIA Historic Building Committee; Board of Directors, Preservation League of Oregon; Portland Parks Board; State Advisory Committee for Historic Preservation; and Vice-Chairman of the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission. Mr. Hawkins has been practicing architecture in Portland for forty-five years, 1964-1994 with Allen, McMath & Hawkins and since in private practice. He holds a degree from the Graduate School of Architecture, Yale University, and is the author of The Grand Era of Cast-Iron Architecture in Portland and Classic Houses of Portland, Oregon, 1850-1950.
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John Karel
Director, Tower Grove Park St. Louis, MO John Karel is the director of Tower Grove Park in St. Louis. Tower Grove Park was the gift of Henry Shaw in 1868 to the city of St. Louis with the exclusive control of the park lodged in a group of commissioners with commission members appointed by the Supreme Court of Missouri. John has been park director since 1987. He returned to the NAOP board for Olmsted Parks as treasurer in 2005.
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Caroline Loughlin
Weston, MA Caroline Loughlin, NAOP board chair, also is the president of the board of trustees of Friends of Fairsted and a volunteer at Mount Auburn Cemetery. She serves on NAOP’s steering committee for the Olmsted Research Guide Online (ORGO), a joint project with the Olmsted National Historic Site, National Park Service. For more than twenty years, she volunteered on projects connected with Forest Park in St. Louis, serving on two Forest Park master plan committees and co-authoring Forest Park, published in 1986. She was board president of Forest Park Forever, a friends group, and, in 1992, received the Leffingwell Award for service to Forest Park. She participated in developing a proposal for a metropolitan park district in the St. Louis area, which was adopted. Caroline is co-editor of The Master List of Design Projects of the Olmsted Firm 1857-1997. She is a graduate of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, and now lives in the Boston area.
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Lauren G. Meier
Landscape Preservation Specialist, Pressley Associates, Inc. Cambridge, MA Lauren Meier is a landscape architect specializing in historic preservation practice. She received a BA in Botany from Pomona College (1979) and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (1983). From 1985-1989 she was historic parks coordinator for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management. In 1989, she became the founding coordinator of the National Park Service's Historic Landscape Initiative in Washington, D.C., followed by a decade working on cultural landscape projects for the NPS Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation. This included historic landscapes from Maine to California, such as numerous projects for Acadia National Park; the restoration of Fairsted, the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, MA; and the three-volume Cultural Landscape Report for the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco. Lauren is currently Landscape Preservation Specialist with Pressley Associates, Inc., in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is working on a broad range of historic landscapes throughout the eastern U.S., several of which contain landscapes designed by the Olmsted firms. She is also an instructor in landscape preservation at the Landscape Institute, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. Her work in landscape preservation has received several state and national awards including the restoration of Fairsted and the recently completed Strategic Plan for The Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. She lives in Belmont, MA, with her family and summers on Cushings Island, a summer community planned by Frederick Law Olmsted Sr.
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Sara Cedar Miller
Director of Archives and Information at the Central Park Conservancy, Historian and Photographer for the Conservancy New York, NY Sara Cedar Miller is the Director of Archives and Information at the Central Park Conservancy and Historian and Photographer for the Conservancy. She is the author of “Central Park, An American Masterpiece”, photographer for “Rebuilding Central Park”, and Co-curator of the exhibit of Central Park, The Dairy: Central Park 1988. Sara, as historian, is the curator or team member of design and history-based public programming, researcher and fact checker for all historic information and imagery, and spokesperson to the media on general park design and history. Sara has a BA from Syracuse University, a MA from Hunter College in Art History, and a MFA from the Pratt Institute in Photography.
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Susan West Montgomery
Washington, DC Susan is a former co-chair of NAOP and the former President of Preservation Action in Washington, DC as well as a registered Congressional Lobbyist. She was responsible for coordinating and expanding Preservation Action's national grassroots lobbying network, monitoring and researching legislative actions that affect preservation, assisting and encouraging the advocacy efforts of network members, coordinating member services (including web page, newsletter, meetings, conference), and for fundraising, public relations, and communications. Her previous positions have included: Research Fellow at the Institute for Urban Development Research at George Washington University in Washington, DC; Administrator and Recorder of teh Committee of 100 on the Federal City, Washington, DC; and Executive Director of the Buffalo Friends of Olmsted Parks in Buffalo, NY for five years. Susan is an instructor in the Goucher College Professional Certificate Program, a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and a Director of Washington Parks and People. She holds a BA from the State University of New York at Buffalo, with majors in Art History and English Literature, and a MA from George Washington University with a major in the American Studies Historic Preservation program.
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Kevin Moore
Principal, The Urban Environmental Group Newark, NJ Prior to his work with The Urban Environmental Group, Kevin was Project Director of the Weequahic Park Association, where he supervised the construction, development and project specific programming of the historic resource, Weequahic Park, located in Newark, New Jersey. He was responsible for the day-to-day oversight of the Weequahic Park restoration efforts, which includes the successful completion of the $3 million Lake Restoration Project, to test the effectiveness of non-urban BMPs (Best Management Practices) in an urban watershed. He coordinated the first urban wildlife survey in Weequahic Park and northern New Jersey with the NJ Non-game & Endangered Species Program and is responsible for the implementation of the park’s Landscape and Horticultural Training Program for at-risk youth. Kevin also conducts tours for area school children that visit the Park utilizing many of the projects components that are in New Jersey’s education curriculum requirements. Kevin is a former member of the Board of Trustees for the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions (ANJEC) and is on the Board of the newly formed City Parks Alliance, the national park advocacy organization. Kevin is the Chair of the Steering Committee for Watershed Management Area 7 and a member of the NY/NJ Harbor Estuary Program’s Citizen Advisory Committee. Kevin is also a Leadership Newark Fellow Class of 2003. Kevin studied Architecture at Hampton University and Construction Management at New York University.
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Jim Rollins
Esq. Atlanta, GA Jim Rollins has been very active in non-profit organizations concerned with the protection of historic sites, including the Druid Hills Historic District Commission, the Atlanta Urban Design Commission, Easements Atlanta, Inc, the City of Atlanta Historic Zoning Task Force and the Olmsted Linear Park Alliance. He is a partner in Holland and Knight, a large nation-wide law firm. Jim received a BA from Davidson College in Economics and his J.D. from the University of Virginia Law School. He was born in Clarksdale, MS and has lived in Atlanta since 1972.
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Alida Silverman
Atlanta, GA Alida Cooper Silverman is a "citizen loudmouth" member of NAOP. For the past 20 years, she has increasingly focused on preservation of neighborhoods and parks. She lives in Druid Hills - Frederick Law Olmsted's last suburb - in Atlanta, GA. She has served on the boards of her neighborhood civic association, the Olmsted Parks Society of Atlanta, the DeKalb Historical Society, and the Olmsted Linear Park Alliance and currently continues to serve on her neighborhood civic association board as well as the board of the Atlanta Preservation Center. She served two terms as NAOP trustee, 1996 - 2002. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, she also has a M.A. in teaching from Havard's Graduate School of Education.
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Gary Stewart
Gary Stewart is Chairman of the Board of Woolpert, Inc., an architectural, engineering, landscape architectural and surveying firm with 26 offices nationwide. Gary represents the firm on governmental affairs, supporting client relation efforts, engaging with national and state organizations. He is an active member of The American Council of Engineering Companies, the American Society of Landscape Architects, the American Planning Association, the Urban Land Institute, the National Recreation and Parks Association and the North Carolina Recreation and Park Association. During his career, Gary has worked on over 250 park projects, including national, state, regional, county and city parks. He has served the National Park Service, seven state park agencies, and many large county and city park systems such as Fairfax County, VA; Columbus, OH; Indianapolis, IN; St. Louis, MO; Greenville, SC; and Charlotte, NC. He has served as Chairman of the Union County Parks and Advisory Committee and on the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce Board of Advisory. He currently sits on the Board of Leadership North Carolina and on the Council of Advisors for the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation which provides private funding for the preservation, protection and enhancement of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The founders of Woolpert, Inc., Charlton Putnam and Ralph Woolpert, worked with the Olmsted Brothers on numerous projects in southwest Ohio during the early 1900s including: Hills and Dales Park, Miami Valley Country Club; E.A. Deeds Estate; NCR Corporate Campus; and Denison University. Gary is interested in better researching the linkage between Woolpert, Inc. and the Olmsted Brothers. Gary holds a BS in Landscape Architecture from Ohio State University and an MBA from Central Michigan University. He has taken advanced courses on management and leadership from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the American Council of Engineering Companies.