The recipients of the 2008 National Park Service Appleman-Judd-Lewis
Awards for excellence in cultural resource management are H. Thomas
McGrath Jr., Dr. Jeanne Schaaf and Robert Fox.
“This prestigious award recognizes the lasting contributions made
by these employees in the preservation of cultural resources,” said
National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis. “Their accomplishments are a
result of years of unquestioned commitment, never constrained by job
description or position, but guided by ability, intellect, passion and
dedication.”
Jarvis will present the awards during a ceremony in Washington,
D.C., on Dec. 11. Each recipient will receive an engraved crystal plaque
and a $2,500 cash award.
Tom McGrath has been the superintendent of the National Park
Service Historic Preservation Training Center in Frederick, Md., since
1989. Under his leadership, the center has preserved significant
structures, including barns, cabins, lighthouses, canals, ships,
fortifications and historic houses. The high standards to which he holds
himself and his talented staff have ensured that these cherished
cultural resources will last well into the future. McGrath has overseen
the center’s expansion into an independent Learning and Development
Center that now includes maintenance skills training, construction
safety training and development, project management, and technical
advice on preservation techniques and maintenance.
Jeanne Schaaf, the chief of cultural resources for Lake Clark
National Park and Preserve, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Aniakchak
National Park and Preserve, and Alagnak Wild River, all in Alaska, will
receive the cultural resource management specialist award. She
supervises a program that encompasses eight million extremely remote,
but culturally rich acres. She has balanced and directed a multitude of
projects that document local history, ethnography and archeology. Her
four-year salvage excavation of threatened Mink Island in Katmai
produced new information about prehistoric coastal ecosystems and
resource utilization over time. She demonstrated that fully developed
maritime cultures with oceangoing boats were already in place in Alaska
8,000 years ago.
Robert Fox from Weir Farm National Historic Site in Connecticut
will receive the maintenance specialist award. He has served as the
facility manager at the park since its inception in 1990. For the past
19 years he has assumed duties far beyond those of the typical facility
manager. With limited resources, he laid the framework for the
development of projects that stabilize, preserve, and make accessible
many of the park’s structures and cultural landscapes.
The Appleman-Judd-Lewis Awards were established in 1970. They are
named for three well-respected, longtime National Park Service
employees: historian Roy E. Appleman, historical architect Henry A. Judd
and curator Ralph H. Lewis.
