Montana Preservation Alliance
Executive Committee

The Montana Preservation Alliance is directed by an Executive Committee of up to fifteen members. Our Executive Committee includes volunteer historians, architects, city planners and other professionals with an interest in Montana's historic and cultural resources.

MPA 2006 Board Retreat, B-Bar Ranch near Emigrant
Back Row, L to R: Sarah Hansen, Jim McDonald, Sara Scott, Bruce Selyem, Mel Walters, Cindy Kittredge, Dori Skrukrud, Melisa Kaiser-Synness; Front Row: Patti Dean, Beth Krueger, Christine Brown, Liza Nicholas, Chere Jiusto. Photographer: Mara-Gai Katz. Not Pictured: Ann Clancy

PRESIDENT
James R. McDonald, Missoula

Jim McDonald is a Principal Architect and Partner in A&E Architects, P.C.  As of November 1, 2000, his firm of 22 years, James R. McDonald Architects, P.C., merged with A&E Architects, P.C.  The principal firm is in Billings, Montana; Jim oversees the Missoula, Montana office.  He is also an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Montana, where he teaches a preservation course on Architecture of the West.

Jim has extensive experience in the field of historic preservation, restoration, renovation, and adaptive reuse of historic structures, as well as historic resource surveys, National Register of Historic Places nominations, and Historic Structure Reports.  Much of his work involves the renovation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings, which includes providing space for contemporary needs, bringing buildings up to code, providing new environmental systems, and developing standards for the preservation of these buildings in order to retain their historic architectural character in compliance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Preservation.

VICE PRESIDENT
Cindy Kittredge, Great Falls
Cindy is the Director of the Creative Arts Enterprise program at Montana State University-Great Falls. Prior to her current position, she served for 17 years as the Executive Director of the High Plains Heritage Center, home to the area’s historical museum and archives.  She was instrumental in developing the grassroots Hands of Harvest effort, served as the City-County Historic Preservation Officer; spearheaded the development of the Ulm Pishkun Interpretive Center; served on the Museums Association Board for 12 years, four of those years as President, and founded the Great Falls Area Museums Consortium, a collaborative effort of ten museums.  For her work, she was named as the 2003 recipient of the Montana Governor’s Award for the Humanities. She lives on the family ranch, a historic site, outside of Cascade, MT.  She and her husband raise registered Highland cattle and Icelandic sheep, marketing natural meat and wool products.

SECRETARY
Sara Scott, Helena
Sara Scott has been the Cultural Resources Specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife, & Parks since September 2007. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Montana and an M.S. in Anthropology from the University of Oregon. Sara has been working as an archaeologist for nearly 30 years. She worked for the consulting firm, CH2M Hill in Oregon for 10 years and also worked for the Montana SHPO in the early 1980s.  From 1999 until mid-2007, Sara worked as an archaeologist for the Helena and Lewis and Clark National Forests. Her work with the Helena Forest centered around the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial and included conducting on-the-ground surveys of the trail, providing interpretive hikes and presentations, and producing text for interpretive signs and brochures.  For the Lewis and Clark Forest, Sara's project tasks included working on the Badger-Two Medicine Traditional Cultural District, recording prehistoric rock art along the Sun River, and preparing a historic preservation plan for the Sulphur Springs National Historic Landmark north of Great Falls.

TREASURER
Mara-Gai Katz, Bozeman

Mara-Gai Katz has been working as a designer and collaborator with her clients for eighteen years; the last twelve of those years in Bozeman, Montana. While many of her projects are in the Gallatin Valley, her work takes her to both coasts and throughout the American west. Her early exposure to historic preservation influenced her work; many of her projects have a historic component. Living in Montana has allowed her to expand her restoration work to historic ranches and properties.

After spending 10 years as an Adjunct Professor at MSU’s Department of Architecture, Mara-Gai’s approach is as an educator. She is a collaborator by nature, and seeks projects with clients who will enjoy involvement. She works on a range of project types, including custom residences, residential remodels and additions and historic restoration and preservation.

DIRECTORS

Patty Dean, Helena
Patty Dean has worked & volunteered in the non-profit world for nearly 30 years.   A graduate of Carroll College, she received an M.A. in History Museum Studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program/SUNY.  Patty was Curator of Collections at the Montana Historical Society, the founding curator of the Arkansas Arts Center Decorative Arts Museum in Little Rock, & was Museum Collections Manager & later Supervisory Curator at the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul.   Inspired by her studies with the Victorian Society Summer School in London, she co-founded the North Star Chapter of the Victorian Society in America in the Twin Cities & also served on the board of the Minnesota Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians.  She has long been intrigued by how the built environment embodies a society's values. Her research projects & publications have focused on model farm homes, Minneapolis homes & the Arts & Crafts Movement, furniture purchases in Butte in 1910, Twin Cities furniture designers & tastemakers, etc.

Todd Hanson, Havre
Todd is founder and managing member of NORSMAN Development Group, LLC. He approaches historic preservation issues from a uniquely academic perspective. Trained as a professional historian, Todd spent thirteen years teaching early American and Constitutional history at the collegiate and university level before launching his own commercial real estate development company in 2005. Using his experience in the history profession as the foundation of his preservation passion, Todd focuses on the natural relationship between history, culture and preservation. As the owner of a historically significant former United States Post Office & Federal Court House building in his local community, Todd personally knows the positive impact preservation can have upon small rural communities and regional economic development. In addition to his service on the MPA Board, Todd is the Executive Director of a non-profit group, The Society for the Preservation of Historical Structures, as well as the Historic Preservation Officer for the Havre / Hill County Historic Preservation Commission. Todd brings a truly rural perspective to the Board as he lives with his wife and business partner Erica McKeon-Hanson and four daughters in his hometown of Havre.

Gayle Shanahan, Helena

Melisa Kaiser-Synness
Melisa was raised in Prairie Village, Kansas and has a B.A. in Political Science from Mount Vernon College of George Washington University. She moved to Montana in 1987 after serving two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, West Africa. Her early onset wanderlust led her to visit all 50 states and four continents. Her career passion has been to raise money and manage grants for various non-profits.  Currently she is the grant writer for the Montana Wilderness Association.  From September 2001 to August 2007 she worked as grant manager for the State Historic Preservation Office of the Montana Historical Society.  She loves to hike, kayak, play with her two fuzzy white dogs and practice interior design in her 125 year-old home.  She, her husband Curt and teen-aged son Kelen live within walking distance of about everything they ever need, but they love to regularly escape to the mountains, especially the Bears’ Tooth aka 'Sleeping Giant' north of Helena.

Stephenie Ambrose Tubbs, Helena
Stephenie is co-author of The Lewis and Clark Companion: An Encyclopedic Guide to the Voyage of Discovery. She lectures nationally about her experiences and observations on the Lewis and Clark Trail which she first followed in 1976 with her father, best selling author Stephen Ambrose.  She works with conservation and citizens groups to preserve and protect the trail and adjoining wilderness areas. Stephenie holds two degrees in History from the University of Montana and currently writes local history and serves on the Boards of the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center Foundation, the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Friends of Montana PBS and the American Prairie Foundation. Her book of essays on Lewis and Clark will be published by the University of Nebraska Press in the Fall of 2008. Stephenie and her husband John live in Helena with their sons Alex and Riley.

Peter Jennings, Helena
Peter was born in Burlington, Vermont in 1968 and moved to Great Falls, MT in 1973. He received a BA in Anthropology from Dartmouth College and returned to Great Falls in 1990 to work for the Cascade County Historical Society designing and building exhibits. During his time at the museum he also worked with the Pishkun Committee to improve Ulm Pishkun State Park and also assisted with the inventory of the Charles M. Russell museum collection. He attended veterinary school in Missoula and Corvallis and later moved to Vermont in 2002 as a large animal vet. He returned to Great Falls in 2005, where he is currently a small animal vet. Peter became involved in historic preservation in Missoula, first as a carpenter and then as the owner of a 1903 Queen Anne home. Also, while living in Vermont he watched in horror as at least 12 old barns collapsed in 3 years. He says he sees his role with MPA “on the ground in the midst of hammering and sawing, as well as at the desk or meeting table preparing the plan, financing, labor, and purpose of the projects we undertake.” Peter and his wife Elizabeth have two young children, Seamus and Ruby.

EX OFFICIO

Rolene R. Schliesman, State Historic Preservation Office, Helena
Rolene received a Masters of Arts in Historic Preservation from Goucher College, Baltimore, in 2002 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography and Art History from the University of South Dakota, Vermillion, in 1987. She has been the Certified Local Government and Survey Coordinator for the Montana State Historic Preservation Office since 2002. Previously she was the National Register and Rehabilitation Tax Credit Coordinator for the North Dakota State Historic Preservation Office from 1993 to 2002, and was a private preservation consultant in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana since 1985.

Barbara Pahl, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Denver
Barbara Pahl is the Regional Director of the Mountains/Plains Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation where she represents the Trust in the states of Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.  The National Trust provides leadership, education, advocacy and resources to save America’s diverse historic places and revitalize communities.  Ms. Pahl began with the Trust in 1984 as Assistant Director.  She became Regional Director in 1991.

Since joining the Trust, Ms Pahl has played a key role in the development of the National Trust BARN AGAIN! Program, the Heritage Tourism Program, the initiative to save historic neighborhood schools, and the Public Lands Initiative.  She led the Trust’s effort to save Virginia and Nevada City, Montana, Travelers Rest, and to keep the historic red buses in Glacier National Park.  For these projects and other preservation work in Montana, Ms Pahl received the Governor’s Historic Preservation Award in 2005.

Julie Burke, Montana Main Street, Helena

Mary Oliver, Ennis -- National Trust for Historic Preservation State Advisor

Bob Hawks, Bozeman -- National Trust for Historic Preservation State Advisor

MPA STAFF

Executive Director, Chere Jiusto (left) and Staff Historian, Christine
Brown take leave of the office to visit a log barn in the Centennial Valley.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Chere Jiusto, Helena

Chere’s career in cultural resources and public history in Montana has spanned over two decades.  She served as architectural historian and coordinator of the MT SHPO’s National Register program from 1990 to1998, and spent two years overseeing MT SHPO’s community preservation and state survey program from 2000 to 2002.  She also operated a private consulting business from 1988 to 1990, and again from 1998 to 2000, completing broadly diverse projects including community surveys, historic property nominations, historic research and interpretive writing. She has extensive background with cultural resource documentation on every level, including historic properties, determinations of eligibility, cultural landscapes, traditional cultural properties, Section 106 compliance, Section 110 projects, National Historic Landmarks, reconnaissance surveys, preservation planning, threatened site planning, mitigation proposals and heritage education.  

STAFF HISTORIAN
Christine W. Brown, Helena

Christine has a diverse background as a writer, editor, and architectural historian. Ms. Brown earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from DePaul University in 1996, and a Master of Science Degree in Historic Preservation from Ball State University (BSU) in Muncie, Indiana in 2001. Following graduation from DePaul University, Christine worked as a production editor and magazine writer for various trade publications before persuing her passion for historic architecture at BSU. After receiving her Masters degree she worked as an architectural historian for URS, an environmental engineering firm, conducting historic resource surveys related to federal and state transportation enhancement projects. Christine moved with URS to Helena in 2002 and began as a volunteer at MPA not long after. After serving on the Board of Directors for two years, Christine was hired as a part-time employee in January 2006.

At MPA, Christine coordinates all outreach and education programs, including quarterly publication of the Preserve Montana newsletter, memberships, conferences, workshops, website development and maintenance, and tours. She also works on special publication projects, such as the recent Guide to Historic Bozeman by Jim Jenks, The Last Best Barns: A Pictorial History to be published in 2009, and the forthcoming Guide to Southwest Montana's Rural Treasures, a back roads guide to fine craft and cultural heritage. She is married to Pete Brown, who is Historic Architecture Specialist at the State Historic Preservation Office, and handy man extraordinaire. Their son Emmett was born in 2005.

OFFICE ASSISTANT
JC Harrington

James Cort “JC” Harrington graduated from University of Montana in 2004 with a degree in history. JC spent 2½ years teaching English in northern Spain and since returning to Montana in January of this year, worked in legislative services during the 2007 legislature. After helping out at the legislature he spent the summer looking for a job in his field and also worked at the Feathered Pipe Ranch in Helena. JC will be helping with administrative tasks and also providing much needed assistance with our Copperway and Southwest Montana Guidebook projects. JC is delighted to have landed the job here at MPA, and looks forward to contributing to our efforts to preserve Montana’s history and culture.