Our Mission
Our Team
2007 Annual Report
Heritage Conservation Network was founded by two women with a strong, almost inexplicable attraction to dilapidated old buildings. Inspired by this love of historic buildings and understanding their value to the community, Judith Broeker and Jamie Donahoe collaborated on an innovative approach to preserving them. By organizing volunteer vacations in the form of building conservation workshops that bring people to sites around the world, HCN is able to provide hands-on skills training, support community-based projects, and offer a great cultural experience while helping to save the world’s architectural heritage.
Technical experts teach and lead participants in their work. Each workshop is unique, with instruction and tasks tailored to meet the needs of the individual building or site. Volunteers, from near and far, work alongside members of the local community at a broad variety of project sites, from small log or stone buildings to imposing 19th century mansions.
Workshop participants pay a fee that covers their expenses. In exchange they receive skills training, hands-on experience in conservation, the opportunity to experience the local culture while restoring its history, and, some would say, the experience of a lifetime.
HCN seeks grants and corporate funding to cover the cost of project materials and expert conservators and to enable members of the local community to participate at minimal or no cost.
Historic preservation can be a powerful tool for change. In addition to providing rare opportunities for hands-on conservation training, HCN’s workshops address social issues such as job creation, safe housing, sustainable economic development, and environmental issues such as reducing waste and combating global warming. HCN’s workshops help communities restore, maintain and make use of existing buildings, keeping valuable building materials out of landfills, reducing the need for newly manufactured goods, and creating jobs in historic building maintenance and the heritage tourism industry.
Not all sites that request assistance are suitable for a hands-on workshop. In these cases, we draw upon our network of conservation specialists who are often able to provide the information or technical assistance needed. If you have a site in need, suggest a workshop.
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Mission Statement
Heritage Conservation Network supports community-driven projects around the world directed toward the conservation of architectural heritage. Through a network of experts, volunteers and community members, HCN increases awareness of the significance of historic structures, provides hands-on training in building conservation skills, and assists in the completion of projects, all in support of sustainable development and long-term economic growth.
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Board of Directors
Advisory Board
Board of Directors
Judith Broeker, President & Co-Founder
Judith Broeker, loves poking around historic sites with her camera, looking for remnants of a building’s history. After pursuing several other careers, she decided to get serious about historic preservation, and earned a Master's degree in History with an emphasis in Historic Preservation. Her experience ranges from work at a non-profit organization directed to save the historic built environment; research in a major university archive; work with the US National Park Service on National Register and HABS/HAER documentation; to working as a preservation specialist on materials conservation.
Judith has had specialized training at remarkable historic sites such as the Native American Acoma Pueblo, the historic city of Kula, Turkey, and at an old guest ranch in the Rocky Mountains as well as other locations. Combining international travel with hands-on training in adobe conservation, lime plaster technology, and masonry and wood conservation (what could be better) was the source of her idea for HCN’s hands-on volunteer vacations. After running successful pilot projects emphasizing adobe and log conservation techniques in Colorado and Wyoming, USA, she joined forces with Jamie Donahoe to develop Heritage Conservation Network.
Jamie Donahoe, Secretary & Co-Founder
Jamie Donahoe, HCN co-founder, blames her parents for her interest in old houses, having grown up in a house that was built in 1824 and to this day does not have adequate heat. She received a Master's degree in Preservation Studies from Boston University in 1987, after graduating from Hamilton College with a degree in American Studies. Jamie has lived and worked overseas since 1996, and currently lives in Hong Kong. Realizing that her interest in 19th century domestic American architecture was not particularly applicable in this phase of her life, she decided to go global and co-founded HCN in 2001 with Judith Broeker, a colleague from her days in Boulder, Colorado.
Jamie has worked with heritage conservation projects and programs on the local, national and international levels and with organizations ranging from local non-profit historic preservation organizations to the U.S. National Park Service and UNESCO. In addition to Hong Kong, she has also lived and worked in Croatia, Thailand, Switzerland and the United States.
Devin Croft, Treasurer
Devin Croft is a founding HCN Board member and has served as treasurer, helping HCN develop into the international organization it is today. Born and raised in Concord, Massachusetts, Devin has had a lifelong appreciation for history and heritage preservation. He received a BA in Political Science from University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and has worked for the federal government in various capacities throughout his career. He currently works for the U.S. Department of Education as a Regional Training Officer.
Although Devin is a great supporter of preservation, his true love is running. He began on the U Mass track team and hasn’t stopped since. He is an active member of the Rocky Mountain Road Runners, the largest distance running club in Colorado, providing training advice to members. Many weekends you’ll find him competing in one of the approximately 12 races he runs each year.
Susan-Joan Mauriello
Susan-Joan Mauriello is HCN’s specialist in marketing. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in sociology and history from the University of Pennsylvania. After business school, Susan moved to Hong Kong and launched Apply Ivy, an admissions consulting firm that advises candidates from around the world on how to apply successfully to top undergraduate and graduate programs in the United States. Prior to starting her own company, Susan worked as a consultant advising companies in the financial services, healthcare, consumer products and telecommunications industries in areas including strategic planning, market entry, competitive analysis, and acquisition support.
This collective experience has prepared Susan well for her role advising HCN on its marketing and communications strategy, which enables her to combine her love of history with her business expertise. Outside of work, Susan loves to travel around Asia, exploring the history, culture, and cuisines of countries including India, China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Sri Lanka.
Laura Mitchell
Dr. Laura Mitchell joined the Board of Directors to spearhead HCN’s fundraising efforts. As a fundraiser and strategic planner, she has contributed to the success of a number of community associations, schools, and non-profit organizations, and has similar plans for HCN. Laura also serves on the board of Vesper Society (San Francisco, CA), which works to protect human dignity and enhance human potential. Until 2007, she was President of the Luther Institute in Washington, DC. Prior to serving at the Luther Institute, she worked at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. A native Californian, and currently living in Hong Kong, she earned her bachelor's degree at Pomona College and her doctorate in American history at Yale University.
Donald Mallory
Don Mallory joined HCN’s Board to provide expertise in the areas of marketing and communications. He holds a BA in business administration from Texas Tech University, and is currently regional branch sales manager for Vectra Bank Colorado. Don took on the position after two years as a marketing communications officer with Vectra’s corporate marketing division. As branch sales manager, he manages two high functioning teams in Boulder and Longmont, Colorado and develops and implements successful sales, business and service strategies to maximize branch performance. Before joining Vectra in 2001, he worked as a marketing manager and marketing associate for the McGraw-Hill Companies and for Pearson. Don is a networker extraordinaire, and HCN plans to make good use of his many contacts.
Don’s activities outside of the bank include membership in the American Marketing Association and the National Eagle Scout Association, and he serves on the Zoning Board of Adjustment for the City and County of Broomfield, Colorado. When he wants to escape it all, he enjoys hiking and camping throughout the Rocky Mountains with his two young sons and his wife.
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Advisory Board
John Lambert
John Lambert is Founder and President of Abstract Masonry Restoration, a 21-year-old historic masonry restoration contracting and consulting company located in Boston, Massachusetts and Salt Lake City, Utah. He has provided the historic masonry consulting and/or contracting services for several of America’s most notable masonry buildings.
John is actively involved in providing hands-on training in the care of historic masonry structures. He serves as instructor at The Campbell Center for Historic Preservation Studies in Mount Carroll, Illinois, as well as The Traditional Building Skills Institute at Snow College in Utah. John takes a group of students and interested professionals each March to study and work on historic masonry in England and Wales. He has studied and trained in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Italy and Mexico.
John is a frequent speaker and trainer at historic preservation conferences and workshops sponsored by organizations such as The Association for Preservation Technology (APT), Traditional Building and other national and local historic preservation alliances. In addition to serving on several historic preservation related boards, his historic preservation leadership includes serving as the past Chairman of the Board of The Traditional Building Skills Institute. He also serves on ASTM Subcommittee C12.03.03, the task group charged with developing new standards for restoration mortars as well as the ASTM task group charged with updating and reinstating the standard for Natural Cement.
John is a passionate collector of rare and historic books, art and documents written on masonry from the 1700’s to early 1900’s. As an avid student of these valuable resources, he has gained unique insight into the minds of the architects, engineers and craftsmen of the time. He is an expert on the evolution of early American unit masonry mortars. In his spare time, John enjoys raising organic beef cows, playing tennis with his teen age son and daughter and playing competitive basketball.
Kelly O'Brien
Kelly O'Brien is an editorial assistant who is an enthusiastic newcomer to the world of historic preservation. Although she has no formal education in architectural history, she is an ardent supporter of preserving our planet's cultural heritage. As an HCN volunteer, she is doing her best to promote HCN programs in her local community and will be speaking on behalf of HCN both in her community and in other locations.
Kelly has her bachelors in journalism from Ithaca College in upstate New York. (She spent her college years in envy of the architectural triumphs across the hill at Cornell.) After spending 7 months teaching English in Northern China, Kelly worked in her hometown of Eugene, Oregon for three construction trade magazines. One of them, Traditional Masonry, was what led her to discover and get involved with HCN.
Now, Kelly works for a community newspaper on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Upon moving to the Caribbean, she was afraid that there might not be a lot of call for historic preservation. Much to her surprise and delight, St. John, and many of the nearby islands, are covered in the ruins of sugar plantations and estates – possible locations for future HCN projects.
Jane Britt Greenwood
After becoming a licensed architect and working in Boston for a number of years, Jane Britt Greenwood sought to broaden her horizons and in 1992 became the University Architect for the newly founded American University of Armenia (AUA) in Yerevan, Armenia. The eighteen months she spent in Armenia working on the design and development of an American-style university, teaching young architecture students at the Yerevan Institute of Architecture and Construction, and overseeing small-scale renovation projects within the AUA’s existing facility were full of defining moments in terms of personal growth and professional development. It also marked the beginning of a deep love and respect for a beautiful country, resilient culture, and distinctive architecture.
In 2006, Professor Greenwood received funding from the Earthwatch Institute for a research project entitled “An Armenian Pattern Language” that has just concluded the second of a three-year funding cycle. In addition to documenting and analyzing the historic vernacular houses of the Kumayri Historic District in Gyumri, Armenia, Professor Greenwood has also been seeking funds to develop hands-on workshops to help clean, document, and repair key architectural artifacts damaged during Gyumri’s 1927 and 1988 earthquakes. The first workshop, developed with HCN, aims to take the EW research to an applied level by demonstrating the feasibility of repairing and restoring the historic masonry houses of Armenia.
Since entering academia in 1994, Professor Greenwood’s teaching and research interests have focused on design studio pedagogy, vernacular housing, cultural determinants, design build, and sustainability. After five years as Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Art, and Design, Professor Greenwood will return to the teaching faculty in the spring of 2009 after spending the fall 2008 semester on sabbatical leave in Armenia. Professor Greenwood earned an undergraduate degree in Interior Design from the University of Tennessee and a Master of Architecture degree from Virginia Tech. She is a member of the American Institute of Architects, the Vernacular Architecture Forum, and Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. She is also co-founder and President of Historic Armenian Houses, a cultural NGO located in Yerevan, Armenia. Professor Greenwood was recently selected by the College of Architecture, Art, and Design to receive the 2008 Faculty Research Award presented by the MSU Office of Research and Economic Development.
Jeffrey Finch
Jeffrey Finch is a Restoration Carpenter and has worked with the National Park Service, Architectural Preservation Division as a Preservation Specialist since 1998. He now divides his time between the Park Service and his own preservation consulting firm, Heritage Restoration Services. For eighteen years prior to that, he specialized in restoration contracting, working and consulting on a wide variety of projects from design through decorating. He has lectured and led workshops for many groups interested in the preservation of historic architecture. Areas of special interest to Jeff include repair and replication of decorative wood trim; documentation and restoration of decorative finishes and color schemes; and application of new technology to historic buildings to affect energy conservation.
Jeff has been interested in railroads for as long as he can remember and has both photographed real trains and been involved in modeling, which consists of recreating specific locomotives and rolling stock in as much accurate detail as possible. Railroading sometimes takes a back seat to his family’s new hobby, Civil War living history and re-enactment.
Jean Fulton
Jean Fulton is a historic preservation and community outreach specialist who has been actively involved in conservation and cultural resources management for the past twelve years. She is currently working for Cornerstones Community Partnerships in New Mexico as their Preservation Programs Coordinator. Jean has a BA in English and Anthropology from West Virginia University; a BA in Historic Preservation from Mary Washington College in Virginia; and an MA in Public History from New Mexico State University. Jean has worked on a variety of projects involving wood, stone and adobe, and received specialized training in lime plastering while attending the Taller Internacional de Conservacion y Restauracion de Arquitectura de Tierra in Casas Grandes, Mexico.
Jean’s varied experience in the field of cultural resources management has included Historic American Building Survey (HABS) and Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) documentation; cultural landscape documentation of the Old Natchez Trace; archaeological investigation at Jefferson's Poplar Forest and in the Guadalupe District caves; and preparation of numerous National Register Nominations. She is also an experienced finish carpenter. Jean has extensive experience in fundraising, scheduling and cost estimating, community outreach and teaching, which we plan to take advantage of as we develop projects at HCN.
Andrew deGruchy
Andy deGruchy founded deGruchy Masonry Restoration, Inc. over 24 years ago and currently serves as company president. He has worked on hundreds of historic buildings in the Bucks and Lehigh County area of Pennsylvania as well as other locations in the region, many times donating a percentage of his time and materials. He received his training from the nation's oldest private trade school, The Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades in Media, Pennsylvania, founded in 1888, and received their "Key" award for the advancement of its founding ideals. He has lectured and trained on the subject of historic masonry restoration and is active in promoting volunteerism to save historic structures. Andy also owns and operates Lime Works.US which imports Natural Hydraulic Lime from France and Germany; a type of lime that replaces Portland cement and is very effective in the repair of historic masonry structures.
Andy’s greatest joy is family time with his wife and four children, even at times bringing them along to his workshops to include them in the fun and education. Andy enjoys taking the leap of faith with a community group that wants to take on saving an under-funded, but important, piece of community history. He has generously donated his time and project materials to HCN workshops, and is currently working with HCN on a program to provide masonry skills training to at-risk youth serious about developing a career.
Zeina El-Cheikh
Zeina El-Cheikh’s ties to HCN began when she was working toward her degree in architecture, and was developing a project to save and preserve the Al-Khawabi Citadel in Syria. HCN advised her on this rehabilitation project, and she went on to successfully complete her Architecture degree. Since then, Zeina has been involved in architectural survey and documentation of historic houses including CAD drawings; documentation and drawings of archaeological excavations; residential design; graphic design and illustration; and most recently, engineering studies and consulting. She has also written papers on the Citadel project for presentation at conferences in Istanbul, Barcelona, and Florence.
Zeina serves as HCN’s regional contact in the Middle East and has contributed articles to HCN’s Update newsletter. In addition, she is our language expert, speaking Arabic, French, English and German. She was born in France and lives in Syria with her husband and daughter. Outside of work she enjoys watercolor rendering and photography.
Jayne Uhlir
Jayne Uhlir is an HCN Program Volunteer and serves as HCN spokesperson, making presentations at conferences in the U.S. She is also the owner of Stone Art Restoration, LLC and is actively engaged in monument conservation in Denver, Colorado. Through the Fairmount Heritage Foundation, Jayne teaches volunteer training workshops on stone assessment, cleaning, and resetting techniques. In 2005, she led a summer excavation project to map, recover, and preserve 30 sunken 19th century monuments in Denver’s historic Fairmount Cemetery.
Jayne’s education includes a B.S. in Information Technologies from the University of Phoenix and a project management certification (PMP) from the international Project Management Institute. She has trained with the National Center for Preservation Training and Technology (NCPTT) in monument conservation studies, and received certifications in Jahn Restoration Mortars and with the U.S. Heritage Training Center in repointing and rebuilding with traditional lime mortar. Other studies include terra cotta replacement and preservation of historical ironwork. Jayne served as secretary on the founding board of The Stone Foundation and continues as a current member. She is also a member of Association for Preservation Technology (APT) and Association of Gravestone Studies.
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Together....we can build a future for the past
If you would like information about corporate sponsorship opportunities,
please contact us at jbroeker@heritageconservation.net.
To make a donation, see Support HCN.
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