HPEF Co-Sponsors Craft Skills Development Summit

The building industry and historic preservation community have recognized a systemic shortage of well-educated, trained, and experienced persons working in traditional crafts. These labor and skill shortages can lead to contract delays, higher costs, and a serious diminution in the quality of work on historic structures.

To address these issues and to identify successful initiatives and partners, the Association for Preservation Technology International and the Preservation Trades Network invited a broad cross-section of educators, contractors, designers, and regulators to participate in a Craft Skills Development Summit on April 23, 2013, in Washington, DC. HPEF is pleased to have co-sponsored this event.

Delegates at the Preservation Craft Skills Summit. (Photo credit: © J. Bryan Blundell)

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HPEF Co-Sponsors Workshop in Preserving Historic Religious Architecture

Churches and synagogues are among the most treasured landmarks in any community. They play invaluable roles in people’s spiritual lives as well as being places where social services and other programs of important community benefit take place. Nevertheless, the upkeep of these buildings presents numerous challenges. HPEF is pleased to co-sponsor a one-day workshop, Preserving Religious Properties: A Practical Workshop for Caretakers of Older Churches and Synagogues. The event was held on Saturday, April 13, 2013, at Grace Episcopal Church in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Attendees learned how to assess their building’s needs, get advice on moving forward with a preservation project, learn about approaches to funding, and network with others who can provide assistance and support.

For a brochure with additional information about the event, visit the workshop host website: Waterfront Historic Area LeaguE (WHALE).

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12th International Congress on the Deterioration and Conservation of Stone

The 12th International Congress on the Deterioration and Conservation of Stone took place on 22-26 October 2012 in New York City. More than 300 conservationists, material scientists, and scholars from 30 different countries in North and South America, Europe, North Africa, and Asia attended. The Congress featured 168 poster presentations, 78 oral presentations, and 13 tours on topics including documentation, forms and mechanisms of deterioration, and materials and methods of conservation. Sixteen organizations and individuals supported the conference, along with primary sponsors Columbia University and HPEF.

A fund was established in honor of Norman Weiss’s thirty-five years of teaching in the Historic Preservation Program at Columbia University. From this fund, the conference awarded twenty-two scholarships to help students traveling to New York for the conference. The Netherland-America Foundation provided three additional scholarships for students from the Netherlands.

Norman Weiss with students who received a scholarship to attend the 12th Stone Conference

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