Results are in for the PTN Board of Directors Election

The results are in for the PTN Board elections. The Board of Directors voted this summer to expand the board up to 11 positions so as to help spread the workload.

We welcome new board members Sarah Jackson, Peter Janko, Lisa Sasser, Zak Dunne and Bob Zoni to the Board, along with returning member Andy Roeper. Benjamin Curran withdrew from the race for personal reasons while we were awaiting the last mailed-in ballots.  Benjamin will continue to be active with the Education Committee and we thank him for his service as a board member and look forward to his continuing involvement.

Shown left to right are Zak Dunne, Benjamin Curran, Sarah Jackson, Peter Janko, Andy Roeper, Lisa Sasser and Bob Zoni.

IPTW 2013 - Frederick, Maryland

Response to IPTW 2013 Frederick, Maryland, September 6-7, was fantastic. Everyone had a great time and can't wait for the next one. This wouldn't have been possible without the support of the Historic Preservation Training Center of the National Park Service - our host and prime supporter for this event. From the pre conference workshops on gravestone repair and dry stone work to the vendor and demonstrator reception to the jam packed schedule of demonstrations and activities there wasn't a moment to spare. Excellent weather, a first-ever casting of the Askins awards plaque on-site, the most well attended and engaged member meeting in memory and a great set of walking tours really complimented the event. Special thanks to Moss Rudley as the epitome of the local organizer making the event happen.

Next year IPTW 2014 will be at Belmont College in St. Clairsville, Ohio in mid-September.

One of the highlights of IPTW 2013, the annual International Preservation Trades Workshop in Friederick, Maryland was the presentation of the Askins Achivement Award to Duffy Hoffman of Hoffman Painting and Refinishing. The Askins Achievement Award is named in honor of James S. (Jim) Askins, founder of the National Park Service Historic Preservation Training Center and recognizes contributions over and above the noteworthy. The award criteria includes contributions to the preservation trades for: the continuance of traditional building skills, advocacy of training in preservation trades, practicing a building trade at master level of skill and knowledge, and extraordinary effort given to advancing the awareness of traditional building trade skills and knowledge. Read more about the Askins Achievement Award and past recipients.

Nomination Statement by David Gibney:

Duffy Hoffman has been a loyal and active member of PTN since its inception. PTN’s original goals clearly went straight to Duffy’s heart.While already owning a successful painting business, Duffy shifted to learning correct historic painting techniques and methods for restoring finishes on historic structures. His business and all of his teaching activities have centered on that ever since. He is a passionate advocate, sometimes maybe too passionate, but his energy is unbounded.

His goal in life is clearly to promote the historic trades by using his expertise in painting and other restoration skills to educate anyone who is interested in learning, and even those who aren’t!

He is constantly thinking about how he can involve and inspire people, especially young people, to learn about the importance of restoring historic structures correctly. He has been a constant voice, and a loud one, at PTN events for including the youth. He has spent many months trying to start internship and education programs, especially for underprivileged youth or youth who need an occupation. In Elkins, WV he was involved in the Riverside School Project Youth Empowered Solutions to use an empty building to start a job education program for the youth of the area with historic restoration techniques as part of the curriculum. It is still there and he and I will be teaching workshops there this summer.

Duffy has taught myriad workshops, many at no charge. He has produced a video illustrating correct painting restoration techniques. He makes himself available whenever he is needed to reach and teach homeowners, groups and especially young people how to treat historic structures and how important it is to save them. He has appeared on HGTV’s Restore America and in Old House Journal and Fine Homebuilding. Duffy is a mile a minute talker and can be very forceful in expressing his opinions, but no one can doubt his dedication to the historic trades and the educational goals of PTN. Even when he had a serious stroke, he came back, refusing to let his physical weakness stop his mental insistence on promoting PTN’s goals.

I can personally attest to the fact that Duffy is literally thinking (and talking!) about how he can help youth and PTN from the moment he wakes up every day. It is clearly his main goal in life. I have also been involved in PTN since its inception and I have watched all of the leading characters through the years. We are a group of skilled and opinionated artisans and PTN has gone through many changes and regroupings, but Duffy is one of the strong old guys who started and then stayed with PTN and he deserves to be awarded the Askins Award for his constant faith and attention to the goals of PTN.

PTN & the Timber Framers Guild begin a reciprocal Agreement

PTN and the Timber Framers Guild have entered into a reciprocal arrangement for sharing of information and an exchange of board members to respective conferences. The Guild conference will be on August 8-11 in Burlington, VT and you can find that info on the TFG website.

Look for a Guild board member to join us at the IPTW!

New and Noteworthy

Do you know where you are today?

Quite often folks ask, "What is the benefit of PTN?" Well, a benefit of membership in any community network is going to be in direct proportion to how involved you are in your community. Like this, if there is a PTN member near you then chances are pretty good that you are both interested in fixing up old buildings with tools and stuff like that. Reach out and contact them and see if they would like to share with you in a coffee/green tea/meditation/roach-coach break and talk about old buildings, the world, shop-talk, the weather, or how to do stuff like sharpen knives, cut stone, break bread, build bonfires, solder or glaze a window. So, the first benefit of PTN membership is the people that you get to meet. And in case you may wonder where all of these people are at, here is a map:

Network
The essential element of the Preservation Trades Network is the network. Why should we network? Because it empowers us in our lives, it reinforces and builds upon our individual talents and our personal values. It manifests through our ability and willingness to connect and share openly with others that takes us beyond our individual selves. Though membership is an important element of a healthy community, a network goes the next step and the next steps onward beyond the immediate community. To network is to continually reach out to other people and to new territory beyond ourselves.

Good Works
We intend through the practice of our combined trades to leave something of value behind us in the built environment, but more importantly we intend to honor values of traditional trade practice in our lives, in our teaching of others, and through our good works. Though we intend to do good work in our individual professions, the effect of good works is that as a community we provide something of value to enhance and celebrate the human condition within the cultural heritage of the built environment.

Community
We do not build and rebuild alone. We build with friends regardless if they be from any walk of life, any country, trade or profession. We share and bond in our experience of working together and with our coming together to build and rebuild we build community. We share of ourselves within community and live fully through our sense of service to our community.

Fellowship
We strive to know each other within our particular trade interest, but more importantly to know and to recognize each other across the interests of many variations of traditional trade practice, personal interests and diversity of professions.

Education
We want to teach others and we ourselves want to learn from each other and from others.