APT June 2025 Town Hall: Historic Preservation in Crisis-A Community Gathering

APT June 2025 Town Hall
Historic Preservation in Crisis — A Community Gathering

Thursday, June 12, 2025

3:00 pm – 4:00 pm ET

Register Here

Since 1966, the United States (US) Federal Government has played a critical regulatory, funding, and guidance role in the preservation, conservation, and interpretation of historic places, artifacts, documents, and archaeological sites in the US. Federal dollars and expertise have permeated the public history and preservation communities, leveraging private donations, volunteers, and non-profit organizations of all scales. Federal funds have also catalyzed private investment to restore and reenergize buildings, neighborhoods, and entire towns and cities - making historic places meccas for tourism, business, and as places to live - economic, educational, and entertainment engines for local economies.

While not perfect, the system has been robustly built upon this foundation of federal investment for over half a century: forming a large community, educating and empowering Americans through interpretation, and serving a significant environmental benefit through reuse and the lessons taught by designers and builders of the past.

But now all that infrastructure and cumulative generational knowledge is being lost. The impact is only just starting to be revealed - not just in the US but internationally - and is slated to become worse with the President’s budget essentially defunding the Historic Preservation Fund and slashing a variety of federal agencies and programs. The successful system is now broken with few left to accomplish tasks required by law and downstream layoffs at State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs) and Tribal Historic Preservation (THPOs) underway. Private businesses and nonprofits that are part of this public history/preservation ecosystem are beginning to lay off employees and reduce internship opportunities.

Join APT for a “Town Hall” to learn from more, to ask questions, and to be in community with your preservation peers:

• An up-to-date summary on federal activities, executive orders, staff losses, and more from Erik Hein, the Executive Director of NCSHPO (the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers). 

• A summary of the very direct impact to one of APT’s membership organizations from Lissa Rosenthal-Yoffe, the Executive Director of the American Institute of Conservation and the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation.

• An international perspective from Andrew Waldron, the Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals.

• Time for discussion and community, so needed in this difficult time. Moderated by Greg Galer, Executive Director of APTI.

This is a non-CEU event, organized by APTI.