Board Member Highlight- Tom Whitaker

Meet Tom Whitaker one of PHSB’s newest board members.

Tom first became involved in PHSB as a volunteer on our North Manitou Island projects 12 years ago. In addition to his hands-on work with other volunteers on the Katie Shepherd, he wrote an historic structures report for the Boardman Cottage (aka Monte Carlo). The report explores the cottage’s apparent connection to Frank Lloyd Wright, in addition to the building’s chronology over the years, which should serve as a reference as the NPS pursues restoration work.  Tom has degrees in construction management and historic preservation and is a member of the Association for Preservation Technology. He has been on the management team of numerous preservation projects in his career including the Main Administration building at the University of Notre Dame; Hill Auditorium, Burton Tower and the Rackham Building at the University of Michigan; and Union Station in Washington, DC.  Tom recently retired from the Kennedy Center, also in DC, where he managed both new construction and renovation projects and, in partnership with the NPS, completed an Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) documentation effort for the building.

In Tom’s own words….

When I drive through the Park, it always takes me back to a time when small family farms produced a tremendous variety of crops and livestock—not only for profit, but for the sustenance of the families themselves.  Walking through the farmsteads, you can see lots of different outbuildings of all sizes and shapes, each purpose-built by the farmers to serve a specific function, whether it be a chicken coop, a tool shed, a corn crib, or a dairy barn.  Each one tells a story in the life of that farm. I think it’s important that the stories of these farms continue to be told as the world continues to struggle with food shortages and the environmental impacts of large-scale farming.  The old farms were often self-sufficient and inherently sustainable and we can still learn from them today.

The Lake Michigan coast and the islands have their own very different stories about life on the Great Lakes.  It’s fascinating to me to have such a tremendous variety of historical and cultural narratives contained within a relatively small geographical area.