People

I grew up in Nova Scotia, Canada, and initially studied psychology. However, a stint in a federal penitentiary (as an employee) convinced me to follow my other great interest – architecture. Nonetheless, this experience with psychology has been invaluable for all my subsequent positions. I obtained a professional degree in architecture from Dalhousie University, and worked in offices in Canada, and in the mountain Kingdom of Lesotho, where I worked with a housing co-op agency. One stop on this peripatetic employment path involved historic preservation, an area to which I had previously given little thought; but, I was hooked. I returned to studies, obtaining a postgraduate degree in architectural conservation from the University of York, in England, and making wonderful memories of the city’s medieval form and fabric, occasionally experienced on the way back from a medieval pub. Subsequently, I received a Ph.D. in the history and theory of architecture from the Welsh School of Architecture, at Cardiff University, in Wales.

Before entering the halls of academe, I spent several years working with government preservation agencies, primarily for the Province of Nova Scotia, where I eventually managed all of the province’s ‘built heritage’ programs, ranging from property designation to grant aid and tax refund schemes, to advising local governments. This position also afforded opportunities to engage with preservation organizations both nationally and internationally; I served as a member of the ICOMOS Canada Board of Directors for several years, and was also active in the Association for Preservation Technology (APT), serving on the Board of Directors, and as Vice President for a term. And in 1998, I was elected a member of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation, in the UK. In 2002, I accepted a position at the University of Georgia, teaching in the long-established historic preservation program, and the rest, as they say, is history.