 Please welcome to the stage Marita Rivera chair of the board of trustees of the National Trust for Historic Preservation Hello Welcome to pass forward to 2016. We're just thrilled to be in Houston, Texas It's an amazing forward-looking and diverse city and America's fourth largest, which is pretty amazing, too It's very fitting to be starting our time together here in Jesse H. Jones Hall It was designed by Coddill Rowlett Scott That was completed on October 2nd 1966, and it was just a few weeks later that month Texan Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Historic Preservation Act into law So the act heralded a new African-American life and the hall underscored the triumph of Houston as a center of aerospace medicine and the arts Fifty years on both have fared very well At pass forward last year in Washington, DC We began a year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act That conference produced thought-provoking conversations about how historic places can give voice to the full American story Looked at innovative ways to create healthy dynamic and sustainable communities and Challenged us to engage development partners government leaders and all citizens so that saving places becomes their default approach This week these conversations these conversations continue as we use our time together in Houston to chart a course for the next 50 years of historic preservation But before we embark on the journey together, let's take a minute To reacquaint listen to become reacquainted with one another. I think I did this last year, too I'd like first the to ask this year's diversity scholars to stand. I know you're out there. Would you please stand? Thank you We are welcoming a record 50 diversity scholars made possible by the generous support of the National Park Service the Kinder Foundation and the park Park Board of Trustees of the city of Galveston We hope this sets a new benchmark for the program 50 scholars every year for the next 50 years. That's our plan here now Now I invite all of our young leaders everyone under 35 to stand All right Now I want to ask are there any first-time attendees to pass forward, would you please stand? All right. Thank you. Yay And what about our conference veterans those of you who've been to more than 10 preservation conferences stand up? Wonderful Welcome to everyone Now as is our custom I will call to order the annual membership meeting of the National Trust for Historic Preservation as Many of you know the opening plenary of class forward Also serves as our annual meeting of members with the sole order of business being the election of trustees The National Trust Board is made up of a remarkable Talented and dedicated group of individuals who serve not only the organization, but also the preservation movement The slate of trustees presented by the trusteeship and governance committee Includes new trustees and current trustees proposed a reelection after second or third terms Excuse me first or second terms Denominated to serve his first term Jay Clemens For a second three-year term Luis Hoyas and Martha Nelson and for a third-year term Sheffield Hale Detailed biographical information on each of these individuals has been shared online at savingplaces.org At this time it gives me great pleasure to present the slate of nominees for election as trustees of the National Trust I Ask for your approval of the slate by acclamation as indicated by your applause Thank you I trust these work hard every day on behalf of the National Trust But when past forward comes to town their involvement becomes intense and hands-on Board of Trustees member Phoebe Tudor was an early and enthusiastic advocate for past forward Houston and has been involved every step of the way Phoebe teamed up with National Trust advisor and Long-time preservation advocate and practitioner Manette Basel to bring deep knowledge involvement and enthusiasm for preservation in Houston to shape the conference program You will experience this week. I Can tell you their love for Houston is contagious And if you have if our conference staff's enthusiasm for this place is any measure you all will be flying and Infected shortly, too So we extend our deepest appreciation to Manette and Phoebe and to the friends of preservation in Houston when they brought together To support the conference. Thank you as you will learn this week Houston has a powerful preservation story to tell and had built a remarkable city preservation program Tonight the National Park Service will present a certificate to the city of Houston Recognizing their designation as a certified local government To explain more on that and present the certificate I welcome Megan Brown and Martin Howell of the National Park Service and Mark Wolf Texas State Historic Preservation Officer to the stage along with Houston City Council member David Robinson Thank you and good evening and welcome to Houston one of our newest local preservation partners as we continue to Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act today We recognize one of the many great programs that it created the certified local government program Established with the 1980 amendments to the act the certified local government program now boasts 1965 communities across our nation that have made a local commitment to doing historic preservation How many of you out there live or are part of a CLG? All right, applause Partnership is key to this program showcasing the ability of the federal state and local levels to work together Toward a common goal preserving those places that make each and one every one of those 1965 communities special Tonight the National Park Service with the Texas Historical Commission Honors one of our newest CLG partners the city of Houston as the largest city in Texas Houston boasts 14 national register historic districts, nine of which are also local historic districts As well as over 270 properties in the National Register nine state antiquities landmarks and 79 recorded Texas historic landmarks Houston's Archaeological and Historical Preservation Commission has also designated 410 structures as local landmarks Providing them with a higher level of preservation protection as we spend time here during the conference take note of the good work That the Houston community and their commission have been doing at the local level We welcome Houston to the CLG family We are honored to present this certificate to the city of Houston and we invite Councilman David Robinson on stage to accept. Thank you Greetings Welcome to Houston It is great to have you here for this historic and first conference of the National Trust of Historic Preservation As an architect and a local council member I serve in the at-large position two for Houston City Council and on behalf of my colleagues and our great mayor Sylvester Turner, I welcome you to Houston We called up this weather for you by the way, and I hope you're appreciating it I know we've got a lot to celebrate and I hope you're enjoying your explorations of the city of Houston there's so much of our territory 640 square miles and Great new neighborhoods that are emerging historic neighborhoods. They're being preserved for our future legacy I will tell you that I've been involved as a neighborhood leader as a Commissioner on the Houston Planning Commission as well as now in my second term on City Council working hard for the issues that I know you care about It is an interesting time to be in Houston not only for what you are celebrating here, but for The upcoming Super Bowl event that we are working on so hard to prepare for the great showcase that this city will have on the world stage It's an interesting time as well because I think what you're witnessing is in the wake of a fair Small recession that we're experiencing locally with our oil and gas based economy, but based on some wise diversification and investment in Related fields We're we're still thriving as a city and I'm the lucky guy that gets to introduce to you one of our Institutions here in the city of Houston and that is dr. Stephen Kleinberg of Rice University Dr. Kleinberg has been a professor of sociology at Rice and The founding director of the kinder Institute but perhaps most importantly the author and Inspiration for the Houston survey the Houston area survey has been in place since 1982 Which he will tell you was first conceived in the early 80s When our economy was booming, but in the middle of the 80s. We experienced a different time In our economy and with some parallels today We are finding a similar case and I will quote from his work that Houston is where a mute America's future is Going to be worked out Dr. Kleinberg is a visionary for our city He will now spend some minutes with you I think describing some of what he's seen Demographically and how our city is emblematic of the future of the 21st century of the United States So thanks again for being here and I welcome dr. Stephen Kleinberg Well, thank you all so much. I see everything's working here. I've got my clicker I've got ten minutes to fill you in on what we think we've learned from 35 years of systematic surveys in a city that was Booming during the oil boom years of the 60s and 70s We did a one-time survey the city was world famous in 1980 as the city that And that had imposed the least amount of controls on development of any city in the Western world Who cares if it's ugly so what if it smells it's a smell of money, so We did a we did a one-time survey to measure how are people dealing with this tremendous growth But growing concerns about traffic pollution crime What kind of city are we building with that with that affluence two months later the oil boom collapsed Houston went into major recession and then recovered into a restructured economy and a demographic Revolution and these are the changes occurring across all of America. See if my machine is working. Whoops. Oh There it is Sorry, let me go back here. Well, I know we can go back. Can I go back? I Can't go back. Oh, here we go. Okay. Hold on one more second So we have the theme theme as Houston emerged out of that recession into a restructured economy and a demographic Revolution these are the changes occurring across all of America Nowhere more clearly seen or more sharply articulated than in Houston, Texas Who knew suddenly Houston is at the forefront of the new America of the 21st century the new economy This was This was the 30 years after World War two the United States emerged out of that war the sole economic power on the planet all of our potential Competitors were decimated by the war experience 28% of the jobs in America were union jobs The unions can negotiate with the corporations to ensure that workers share in the prosperity of the companies and the average And and the rising tide lifted all boats the poorest 20% of American families more than double their incomes in the 30 Years at the World War two the the richest 5% double theirs the average American man Whatever his job however much education was making more money every year and those were the years when we celebrated to stay at home housewife mother in suburbia the average American woman gave birth to 3.6 children between 1946 and 1964 and the baby boom was launched upon the land preceded and followed by baby bus generation So for 60 years has been this bald going going through the American system Demographers talk about like a pig being swallowed by a python not not very comfortable either for the pig or the python The leading edge of those 76 million babies turn 70 this year And we are going to watch a literal doubling of the number of Americans over the age of 65 in the next 25 years Every day between now and 2030 day after day 10,000 Americans will turn 65 and by 2030 the youngest of those 76 million Overwhelmingly anglows of course because that's who was here non-Hispanic whites who were who was a population of America? The leap by 2030 the youngest of those 76 million will have turned 65 heading off eventually into the sunset Being replaced by a very different generation of Americans I'll come back to that in just a second, but here is the 30 years after World War two here are the last 35 years When virtually all the benefits of economic growth have gone to the richest 20% of Americans the poorest 20% are poorer today Than they were 30 years ago minimum wage used to be $10 and 85 cents in 1960 It's what $7 and 25 cents today the bottom 60% of American families have found their income stagnated or going down And all the benefits have gone to the richest 20% big part. I think of the Donald Trump Victory had to do with the one demographic that is the only demographic in America that is down that That has a lower life expectancy today than 10 years ago living shorter lives are White males with high school educations or less and that was a big part I think of that resentment that sense of finally we've got to deal with this and we've got to Restore the equalizing institutions that used to ensure that most Americans could share in the prosperity of the country What happened two big things happened globalization companies can produce goods anywhere sell them everywhere If you're doing a job I can train a third-world worker to do and I pay that third-world worker $10 a day to do that job I'm not going to pay you $10 an hour And if you are doing a job that I can program a computer to do I'm soon going to replace your job with an intelligent machine We are in a new world where education always a nice thing to have has become absolutely essential to a person's ability to earn enough money To support a family in the global knowledge economy of the 21st century So theme number one is that growing inequalities predicated above all else on Education a way that has never been as true before in American history theme number two this remarkable fundamental Irreversible transformation in the ethnic composition of the Houston the Texas and the American population Why here why now what's going on? Here's a quick reminder of American history Here's the number of immigrants coming to the American each of the decades in the 1820s to 2000s the big story of course is that between 1492 and 1965 82% of all the human beings on the face of this earth who came to these shores 85 82% came from Europe another 12% were Africans brought here slaves to serve the Europeans There was a handful of Chinese and Japanese working as farmers and laborers in California, Hawaii This was an amalgam of European nationalities We were operating in the last 40 years of that period as a deliberate effort to allow only northern your Europeans to come to this country immigration plummets with with this restrictive laws of 1924 the Great Recession followed by World War two Followed by the terrible aftermath of World War two We thought immigration had ended the law could not survive the shifts of consciousness with the civil rights movements and The law was changed in 1965 thinking nothing would change and everything changed during the 1960s Three and a half million immigrants came to this country only 38% were from Europe 1970s 5 million came only 18% were Europeans 1980s 90s and 2000s 10 million immigrants per decade have been coming into America 88% of all the new immigration in the last 35 years coming from Asia Latin America Africa the Caribbean and the United States are throughout all of our history have been an amalgam of European nationalities is rapidly becoming a microcosm of the world The first nation in the history of the world that can say we are a free people and we come From everywhere and it's a truly remarkable to have been the same moment as the American economy is becoming fully integrated A single global world economic system America the only nation on earth today That is a true microcosm of all the world's peoples of all the world's religions Immigration of course is network-driven, so it's not having the same rate everywhere in America. You go where you know people New York is of course the great immigration capital in terms of sheer numbers followed by by Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago followed right after Chicago by Houston, San Diego Washington, DC then Boston Dallas Atlanta spreading out of every city in town across America No city has been transformed as fully as completely as suddenly as Irreversibly as Houston, Texas this city throughout all of our history was essentially a bi-racial Southern city dominated and controlled in an automatic taken for granted way by white men in the space of the last 30 years has become the Single most ethnically diverse major metropolitan area in the entire country here the census figures for the three decades of the oil boom There was our bi-racial world in 1960 There were 1.243 million people living in Harris County, Texas 74% of us were Anglos 20% of Americans just 6% Hispanics That's in one half of 1% were Asians during the oil boom years It was Anglos pointed to Houston from everywhere else in the country by 19 by by 1980 Houston become the fourth largest city in America having surpassed Philadelphia still an overwhelmingly Anglo city after the oil bust of 1982 the Anglo population of Harris County Stop growing and all the growth of this the most rapidly growing city in America the last 35 years all the growth and net growth has been Been the influx of African Americans Latinos and Asians here are the last three decades and there's a story There are fewer Anglos in Harris County today and we're 10 years ago fewer 10 years ago 20 years ago African American population growing at 20% per decade keeping keeping pacer the populations a whole and Soaring populations of Latinos and Asians of by 2010 Harris County was now 41% Latino 33% Anglo 18% African American 8% Asian Wow, right so two things to point to here number one Just think how different the story of Houston would have been had we not become one of the magnets for the new immigration of the last 35 years Houston would have lost population We would have the same fate as other major American cities across the country that are Wonderful cities, but have stopped growing in the last 30 years. We're not talking about How to that doesn't growth is not necessarily the only thing that matters in terms of moving toward greatness But Philadelphia Baltimore Pittsburgh St. Louis Detroit Cleveland Cincinnati Buffalo Cities that have not grown in the last 30 by use Houston's one of those rapidly growing cities in America purely because of all the tremendous energy vitality commitment hard work of immigrants pouring into the city from all the rest of the world and The other thing that's interesting is that Houston has a more even distribution among the four great communities of America than any of the other Multi-ethnic melting pot cities the very few Asians in Miami They're very few Hispanics in San Francisco the very few African Americans in Los Angeles This is where the four communities meet greater balance greater equality all of us Minorities all of us called on to build something that has never existed before in human history a truly successful inclusive equitable United multi-ethnic society that will be Houston and Texas and America as a 21st century unfolds Here is another very quick way to envision this There are 1,723 census tracts in Harris County and in 1980 and blew are all the census tracts of a majority Anglo in red Where the was the African American corridor in the inner city of Houston's that was predominantly African American and then along the ship Channel was the Segundo barrio in the Latinos were and then a very few places around that beltway and that olive color with no majority This was 1980. Here's 1990 Here's 2000 and here's 2010 Isn't that incredible with no one having planned this no one consulted with me before all these people came Houston finds itself at the forefront of the demographic transformation that is occurring across all of America Nowhere more clearly seen than in Houston, Texas, and it's not just numbers. Of course. It's also ages So this brings me back to my discussion of the baby boom earlier on So I've got babies on the left and I've got old people on the right and I have 12 different age categories of under the age of five to 75 years old or older and Here somewhat to my chagrin is where the angles are in Harris County, Texas today Ladies and gentlemen the baby boom It's not until you reach people in Harris County age 63 and older that you still encounter a majority of folks as Anglos and at every younger age group the percentage of angles plummets the percentage of African-Americans Latinos and Asian surges Here's where everybody else is in Harris County, Texas So this is a powerful picture of Houston's present and future Everybody of all the 1.3 million kids in Harris County, Texas under the age of 20 51% are Latinos 19% are African-Americans 9% are Asians 22% are Anglos So two big points to make number one 70% of everybody in Harris County, Texas today under the age of 20 70% are African-American and Latino the two groups overwhelmingly the most likely be living in poverty We know what poverty does to your ability to succeed in the public schools It is a safe statement to make that if Houston's African-American and Latino young people are unprepared to succeed In the global knowledge economy of the 21st century It is difficult to envision a prosperous future for Houston and the other point to make is that this is a done deal Close the borders build your fence close off America Seal it off from no no immigrants ever again will come we'll round up the 10 million people You think I hear illegally and send them wherever you think they're supposed to go 63 year old Anglos are not going to be making a whole lot more babies I tell everybody we'll do the best we can So you can go to the bank on this no conceivable force in the world is going to stop Houston or Texas or America From becoming more African-American more Asian more Latino and less Anglo as a 21st century unfolds Nothing in the world can stop that. So the only question our generation has been given It's okay. How do we make this work? How do we ensure that this diversity becomes a tremendous asset that can be as we position ourselves in the global economy and make sure it Doesn't end up tearing us apart Much depends on how this generation speaks to this remarkable convergence of the two revolutionary changes of our time Okay, so that's Texas here. That's Houston. Here is the United States today And there's it's overwhelming still angle But the same underlying pattern the story of the baby boom the aging of the Anglos that is the story of our lives as We go forward in the census Six months after they gave us this data said okay Now all of our estimates across the entire country of the United States that of all the kids who are under the age of six The majority are now African-American Latino and Asian and they said you want to know what America will look like in 2050 Let's assume virtually no immigration and just go by the actuarial tables. Here's what America looks like in 2050 So that's very close to Houston, Texas today And it really is fair to say how Houston and cities like Houston navigate this transition will have enormous significance Not just for the Houston future, but for the American future This is one of the places where the American future is going to be worked out and we in Houston I think are coming to understand that as we try to deal with this transformation and make it work It's where we're dealing and building not just the Houston future But a model for what all of America might yet become as the 21st century unfolds and Finally quality of place Houston never paid much attention to quality of place, right? What the source of Houston's wealth was predicated on its location of the east Texas oil fields We were booming no matter what we did basically and and the 21st the 20th century economy was based on our on our location of the east Texas oil fields The location of the east Texas oil fields For everything in the 20th century is going to come for less and less and eventually for zilch in the 21st century What will be the source of Houston's wealth and the answer is? Biotech the medical center the largest medical complex on earth 100,000 people work at the medical center 20,000 scientists and doctors biotech Bion nanotech with nanotechnology research at rice superconductivity u of h bio nano info tech bio nano info in viral tech The source of wealth for cities like Houston and like all of our cities in the 21st century the source of wealth We'll have to do with attracting the best and the brightest people in America working at the cutting edge of knowledge Even to put that knowledge into commercial ventures the resource of the knowledge economy is housed between the ears of the best And the brightest people in America who can live anywhere and suddenly quality of life issues never important for Houston Let's say who cares if it smells suddenly it becomes central to the pro-growth agenda for the city And you can see just as some examples of a trust you'll have a sense to see how much is going on while you're here visiting with us and and suddenly Historical preservation has become a central part of the authenticity of the city. Why come to Houston? What can you see here that you can't see in other places? That's why historical preservation is so critical, but you can see a whole range of things that we've done one of the one of the Transformative events in Houston's history. I think happened in 2012 when the citizens of the city of Houston voted to tax ourselves to Launch a bond of a hundred million dollars to be matched by a hundred and twenty million in private monies to take the bayou This used to be called bayou city nine major bayou's that Crisscross the city that were Concretized in the cheapest possible way by the Army Corps of Engineers to serve as drainage ditches for our flooding problems That's what we did down here during the 60s and 70s and 80s. We got a flooding problem We got these creeks there of no value That's straight in the mouth as much as possible concretize and get the water out of here We voted to build a hundred and fifty miles of linear park space along all ten of those bayou's With jogging trails and biking trails and linking them together and by the time bayou greenways 2020 is completed 60% of all Houstonians will be within a mile and a half of a bayou trail and It's a beautiful example of Something that would not have happened just a few years ago And in our survey we asked these questions in 2012 and again in 2016. Is there a biker? Parker play area within a mile of your home. How often did you visit it in the last year? Is there a hike and bike trail nearby with a mile of your home? How often was that and we came back and asked the identical question in our survey four years later and More people now recognize that they live near a bike and hike and bike trail or a park But strikingly significantly more people say I visited that park I made use of it and people in Houston are prepared to really take advantage of this remarkable shift the other thing to point to very quickly is is How What is unusual about Houston as you'll soon discover if you haven't already is that this is the most spread out Least dense most automobile-dependent city in America. This is the city of Houston cover 600 square miles John be sick and has a grand total of a little over 2 million people 600 square miles You could put inside the city limits of Houston, Texas Simultaneously, I kid you not the cities of Chicago Baltimore Detroit and Philadelphia Those four cities cover the same geographical space together as a city of Houston and they contain five and a half million people City of Houston has 2 million then you go out to the Greater Houston metropolitan area the CMS a of Houston There's Harris the Harris County in the middle down there in the Southwest is Fort Bend County I didn't get to mention that Fort Bend County We honestly think is the single most ethnically diverse County in the world Fort Bend County with sugar land in Rosenberg Fort Bend County is 20% Asian 24% Latino 21% African American 34% Anglo You can't get much closer to one fourth one fourth one fourth than that and that's a measure of how ethnically diverse The population is but that nine County area covers a geographical space of over 10,000 square miles has a total of six million people in it six and a half million 10,000 square miles is almost as the is large almost as large as the state of Massachusetts and Considerably larger than the state of New Jersey. This is the blob that ate East, Texas Houston was built on a crummy little bayou 50 miles from any natural barrier in any direction No mountains no forests no rivers and developers dream built by four on behalf of the automobile made possible by air conditioning and we spread Everywhere and we have created a civilization totally predicated on the automobile And we've been asking people in our surveys if you could choose how you wanted to live in Houston What would you pick and here very quickly again? I'm just about and I'm going over here and I apologize But this is three different questions. We've asked over the years. What kind of residential area? We should like live in a single family residential area or an area with a mix of developments including shops workplaces and restaurants 50-50 split What kind of home would you like to live in a single family home with a big yard where you would need to drive? Everywhere you want to go or smaller more urbanized home within walking distance of shops and workplaces 50 we try to figure how many people in Houston have the choice of living within walking distance of shops and work I thought maybe seven ten percent That's a big part of what the future will be and then how should we spend our our Transportation money to spend them on on on expanding existing highways or spend them on on improving rail and buses and Again a 50-50 since going down a little bit will watch this as we go forward I think a big part of that is that is the opening question our survey when we ask people What would you say is the biggest problem facing people in the Houston area today? Not too long ago. It was the economy before that it was crime today. It is overwhelmingly Traffic and and so people think okay. I've got it. We need more roads to solve our Someone once said they're trying to build trying to solve your traffic problem by building more roads Is like trying to deal with your weight problem by buying a bigger pair of pants? Because you're literally for a little while doesn't solve the problem So what is happening here is a reminder that we are a different folk Then we were in the 60s and 70s when we all went out and built this massively sprawling world of ours In 1972 thirds of all American families had children living at home today about one third the census thinks by 2020 about one of every four households in America will have any children at home Whole bunches of us are empty nesters the kids have grown up. I've worked downtown I love the ballet in the symphony do I want to still want to have to walk to Two hours drive two hours every day do I want to have to mow the lawn give me a choice Just that and we're trying to attract this millennial the knowledge workers Sociologists talk about this generation as a postponing generation They seem to be in no rush to get married to have babies to turn us into grandparents They don't want to be out in the suburbs They want all the diversity and walkability and bar hopping that only cities could provide since this thinks by 2020 We're going to count as many households consisting of a single person living longer than households with children at home And they don't want to be out there in the fastest growing age segment of the American population Our men and women over the age of 85 that segment is growing faster than any other segment of America I Tell my students you graduate from rice at the age of 21 to 22 you have 60 years of vigorous adult life ahead of you We have not seen anything yet as that baby boom generation turning 70 moves into that status I'm not sure I want all those 85 year olds having to drive everywhere in Houston, Texas So it is a city Reinventing itself to address the realities of the 21st century and here's one other very quick reminder of what's going on here This is East of Main Street, believe it or not in 1978 that little thing on the left is is the It's 59 coming from the airport. That's what downtown Houston looked like we worked downtown We went out to the suburbs Surface parking land speculators waiting for the price to get right four years after this picture was taken comes a total collapse of The economy in the in the oil bust here is exactly the same place 33 years later And and so suddenly it's a city and you'll see some of that and it's it's a city that is self-consciously aware that if it's Going to be successful in the 21st century it has to position itself in a different way than its success when Success was predicated on its location near the east Texas oil fields So again in just quick summary the central challenge for Houston the central challenge for America is Investing in a new generation of young people coming along who need the much higher levels of education than ever before to compete successfully in the global economy We have this incredible opportunity to build a new sort a new civilization of that is a mix of all the ethnicities of the world and giving equal power to all of us as we together shape the Houston of the 21st century and We're gonna add we think another one million people in the Harris County in the next 20 years another three million into the Greater Houston metropolitan area can we build a more beautiful a greener a healthier a More accessible city with another one million people in it only if we figure out how to guide that growth And it's fascinating to watch cities like Houston Rethinking what they need to do in order to position themselves for success in the very different world of the 21st century Thank you all very very much. Sorry to take so long Thank you Please welcome to the stage national trust president and CEO Stephanie Meeks as president of the national trust I have the privilege and honor from time to time to single out a particular project or Individual for special recognition through our president's award, and it's my great pleasure to do so again tonight Judge Ed Emmett of Harris County, Texas has been instrumental in saving a national icon the Houston Astrodome and Tonight we honor him From the very beginning judge Emmett has taken a stand for preservation as Numerous proposals to reuse the Astrodome were Suggested over the years judge Emmett remained vigilant Following the stadium's declaration as a national treasure in 2013 and listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014 judge Emmett began working closely with a group of local Preservationists including the then director of preservation Houston National Trust staff and board members and others Together they invited the Urban Land Institute to conduct a technical panel Which concluded that the dome can and should live on a huge step in preserving this international icon Since then judge Emmett has remained the strongest spokesperson for repurposing the Astrodome Leading studies to consider adopting the ULI panel's recommendations and forming crucial public-private partnerships to ensure the dome's future and Just over one month ago Judge Emmett managed to gain unanimous approval from the county commissioners court for his revitalization plan for the Astrodome The budget is estimated to be 105 million dollars After eight years standing vacant the world's first domed stadium The eighth wonder of the world now has a bright future Thanks to the tenacity and unwavering leadership of county judge Ed Emmett judge Emmett Please come on stage to accept our award and our gratitude Thank you so much Here to continue the preservation of the presentation of our national preservation awards is Kim Coventry Kim is the executive director of the Richard H. treehouse foundation one of our most important and treasured partners And our sponsor of tonight's awards program. Please join me in welcoming Kim to the stage. Thank you Good evening I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the national trust for five years of thoughtful stewardship of the Richard H. treehouse foundation national preservation awards For those unfamiliar with the foundation It was established 33 years ago and has distributed some hundred million dollars to organizations in Our program areas the largest of which is focused on the built environment with a special emphasis on historic preservation Tonight we honor preservation practitioners whose work the jury deemed exceptional Each year we are gratified to see courageous and visionary projects from across the country Congratulations to all the awardees as We mark the 50th anniversary of the National Preservation Act. I thought it appropriate to share what we at the foundation Believe will prove to be a new frontier for the built environment and by extension for historic preservation from our vantage point Neuroscience and techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and Biometric testing which are revealing important facts about how our brains respond to the built environment Will become a powerful preservation tool Neuroscience to quote one researcher has long held that quote half our brain activity is devoted to visual processing This suggests that the nature of our built environment has an enormous impact on where we feel at our best Another researcher has pointed Has posited that evolution plays a role in our connection to place still others are looking into the psychology of place Fortunately these things can now be measured and used to make important important arguments in support of historic preservation Results demonstrate that how we respond to the built environment is a complex Multi-sensory phenomenon that we all experience when we recognize that a given place is special and particular as opposed to being merely a location it seems clear to From cross-disciplinary studies including several by the trust screen lab That one of our most pressing social issues stable and affordable housing Can be greatly aided through careful and considered adaptive reuse and preservation of our built cultural legacy This is not easy work Cities by definition are places where competing interests converge and must be negotiated The American built environment is characterized by enduring oppositional views on preservation and innovation the desire to preserve existing conditions and the desire to make new ones The trust is a watchdog at the nexus of much of the progress that has been made over the last 50 years To ensure that historic places continue to resonate and educate for generations to come Finally Richard Drey House sends his warmest regards and thanks to the trust and to all of you Who are on the front line? Ensuring that we save more than we forsake Tonight I'm proud to honor two of our Drey House preservation award recipients Who are being recognized for excellence and ingenuity in a preservation project a Third Drey House award will be presented later this week at the closing luncheon National Trust Advisor Jean Follett is here to assist in awarding tonight's projects. Thank you a unique Venetian Gothic icon in the city skyline the Chicago Athletic Association building was designed in 1893 by architect Henry Ives Cobb to house the club founded by national sports and business leaders like Chicago Cubs owner William Wrigley and sporting goods pioneer Albert Spalding the association Thrived for decades, but due to dwindling membership the building was vacated in 2007 in 2012 it was acquired for adaptive reuse as a boutique hotel Extraordinary care was taken to create a contemporary hospitality environment while preserving the building's rich architectural details the building's redevelopment relied on both historic tax credits and local tax incentives Converting the structure for hospitality required creative interior strategies to link floors that did not previously connect and modernize building services Hidden historic finishes were revealed and Entirely new mechanical and electrical systems were hidden The stunning transformation helps preserve the architectural integrity of the iconic Michigan Avenue Street wall and serves as an inspiration for the district the restoration of the 1841 whale ship Charles W. Morgan recaptured the art of wooden ship building and preserved it for a new generation of shipwrights Almost 100 years after her worldwide working career ended the newly Rehabilitated ship took a triumphant voyage to seven historic New England ports in 2014 Owned by the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut The Morgan is the second oldest American ship afloat and the world's only surviving wooden whale ship today she is a national historic landmark her 2014 voyage was made possible by more than five years of work and $12 million raised in a broad national campaign The Morgan's journey promoted the stewardship of intangible heritage in public history Educating nearly 65,000 people about everything from the diversity of those who worked in whaling to human whale interaction She has since returned to Mystic as a permanent floating exhibit a significant landmark in herself And the preserver of wooden ship building for years to come Hello, everyone. I'm Jean followed at National Trust advisor from Illinois I'm very pleased to be able to present this first three house award tonight to an outstanding project both for Chicago and for the State of Illinois There's no doubt that the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel is an absolute preservation triumph Please join me in congratulating the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel on this achievement Here to accept the award our Paul Alessandro partner at heart-shorn plunkered architecture Michael Lemons project executive at Bullion Andrews David Linden division leader in the commercial restoration and corporate at Bullion Andrews and Laurie Horvath Senior vice president at Jones Lang was out I'm also happy to be able to present a treehouse preservation award to the Charles W. Morgan a Project that not only preserved a beautiful wooden whaling ship But helped keep the art of wooden shipbuilding alive here to accept the award is Quentin Snedeker the director at the Henry B DuPont preservation shipyard Congratulations once again to the treehouse winners tonight Now we come to the National Trust's highest honor the lifetime achievement award The Louise DuPont crown and shield award honors individuals who have gone beyond the call of duty and who have left a Profound impact on the preservation movement tonight We are honoring not one but two individuals who through their exemplary work and gift for mentorship have already greatly influenced the next 50 years of preservation in honor of the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act the National Trust is proud to honor two individuals who have profoundly impacted our field in 1977 when the acts provisions were first being implemented Dr. W. Knox Mellon became the first state Historic Preservation Officer of California the Shippo offices we know today have been shaped in large part by his visionary leadership and pioneering work which turned the act into a vital tool for preserving our heritage Mellon served as the state's Shippo from 1977 to 1984 and again from 2000 to 2004 in the interim He founded a preservation consulting firm to work on critical projects like Los Angeles City Hall the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Los Angeles Coliseum Mellon went on to become the executive director of the California Missions Foundation helping preserve California's 21 Spanish-era mission churches in his retirement Mellon has continued to champion preservation causes Most recently working with stakeholders at Cooper, Malera, Adobe toward a viable and vibrant future for the site Throughout his career Mellon taught at Immaculate Heart College and the University of California Riverside He has been described as an unparalleled educator and his thoughtful mentorship has ensured that his legacy will continue Through the work of hundreds of preservationists around the country He has set the standard for preservation professionals by looking for positive solutions Building consensus and thinking creatively about how we preserve and continue to use historic places Like Dr. Mellon Paula Wallace has devoted much of her professional life to preparing a generation of preservationists Wallace established the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1978 when she was only 29 years old SCAD is now the largest and most comprehensive art and design university in the United States Historic preservation was one of the original programs at SCAD The program has taught it's more than 800 graduates to distinguish themselves through research and to make it real by creating collaborative models with organizations like the National Trust the Association of Preservation Technology and local nonprofits SCAD has put preservation in practice by Rehabilitating 100 buildings since its founding the school has also played a significant role in revitalizing Savannah through adaptive reuse of neglected and abandoned properties Wallace's continued dedication to advancing a legacy of historic preservation at SCAD has been recognized by organizations including the American Institute of Architects and UNESCO Wallace is a leader of the preservation movement in both concept and Execution her commitment to SCAD has also been a commitment to Savannah's historic resources and rather than treating historic places as frozen in time She champions their reuse as vital components of modern communities Paula Wallace and Nox Mellon have played an immense role in shaping the preservation movement and we are grateful for their visionary leadership And now to present the crowning she'll awards are marita Rivera and board of trustees vice chair Tim Wayland Thank you Nox Mellon has been a critical part of setting the very foundation of what we know as the preservation movement today His contribution to adapting the new National Historic Preservation Act and making it work Through state historic preservation offices would have been service enough But Nox not only shaped our offices. He shaped our people With a lifetime passion for education and mentorship Nox expertly instructed an upcoming generation of preservation They and their outstanding work continue today I'm sorry to say that Nox is unable to join us But he has written some remarks to be shared with you tonight, and I invite Katherine Mellon France Our national trust vice president for historic sites on stage to accept this award on his behalf Thank you I am one of the many people in preservation who has benefited from the support and mentoring of Nox Mellon I am deeply honored to accept this award on his behalf and share the following remarks from him as As everyone who has ever been involved in saving historic sites and structures knows Historic preservation is first and foremost a group effort Any recognition of my personal involvement could not have occurred without assistance In accepting this wonderful crown and shield award I do so with thanks to the dedicated associates who participated in all my varied projects over almost 41 years When I became California's first professional state historic preservation officer and began to work People would often ask me. What do you do when I replied that I worked in historic preservation? The answer was almost always. What is that? I? Doubt if there are any new state historic preservation officers today who would receive that response certainly not in California How exciting it has been for me to make a career out of helping to save historic buildings and structures and even more significantly to witness whole populations across the country Learning over time about that exciting new movement historic preservation How lucky I have been to venture throughout the great state of California From Reading in the north to San Diego in the south helping to restore and rebuild its historic fabric all across the United States Preservation is both known and appreciated and Finally what a blessing it is to have the leadership of the National Trust for historic preservation Knox at the National Trust We are grateful for your leadership that sets the standard for solution oriented preservation That brings people together and empowers them to save the places that matter to them Thank You Knox and Congratulations Good evening Paula Wallace is one of the youngest crown and shield recipients the National Trust has ever honored I'm sure that is due in part to the fact that she founded the incredible Savannah art and design college at the tender age of 29 Paula has nurtured what has become the largest and most diversified art and design University in the United States and Is known from coast to coast and she's always kept historic preservation at its core 800 historic preservation graduates and counting Please join me in congratulating Paula Wallace on this distinguished achievement. Thank you What an unforgettable Honor this is to stand here tonight among the legends of historic preservation When I think about Lee Adler and Richard Moe and Henry Francis DuPont Marguerite Neil Williams so many others what giants my goodness. I am no giant What I am is humbled yes and grateful to accept this highest of honors in our profession When I found a scad four decades ago, I never dreamed I'd become the first university president to receive this award To all the honorees of this evening Congratulations tonight. We've seen a glimpse into the vibrant future of our profession For make no mistake. This is the province of historic preservation the future and our fearless Remaking of yesterday into tomorrow Well, how did I get here? Well before I created scad. I was a school teacher up to that point all I'd historically preserved were the blackberries I picked on my grandmother's farm in In 1978 when we founded our then tiny college. Yes, I was just in my 20s and I was new to Savannah. I knew nobody and worse. I was from up north by which I mean Atlanta I was a girl with a dream to create a university with the same magic that I'd made in my elementary school Classrooms where I showed my students that the past long to teach us and then how to use this knowledge to make Songs films musicals in short to use the lessons of history to make something new The act of creation breathed life into my elementary school students So when I saw the old armory on Bull Street scads very first building I fell in love I longed to breathe life into this dignified old building Creating a new just as I had with my young students. I threw open those doors with no idea what lay in store The moment I first touch those century old Soot-stained walls of the armory. I believed we could transform that Delapidated structure into a thriving home for higher education Where the mind longs to know the hands long to make and the heart longs to love This was the first lesson in my 40 year preservation education that buildings are made by people For people and that preservation is more than a restorative act. It's a creative act 40 years later scat is proud to have redeemed and Rehabilitated more than 100 buildings on three continents in Savannah scads Norris Hall a former 19th century refuge for women spinsters and widows of the time is Now dedicated to scad international students from every corner of the globe in Atlanta scads Ivy Hall the premier example of Queen Anne Victorian architecture Now houses the most professionally oriented BFA and MFA degree programs in writing in higher education at scad Hong Kong the courtroom and jail cells of the North Calais Magistra see building Stand witness and testify to the value of creative education in Asia's world city at Scad la cost in France the centuries old former stables of the Marquis de Sade Have been transformed in the most into the most awesome College residence hall the world has ever seen with unbelievable views of the Provence all Landscape by the way, if you ever find yourself working on the upcycling of medieval caves I have one piece of advice mind the scorpions We engage our students in lively scad conservation and repurposing on three continents students inhabit scad buildings Write about them photograph them draw them students from every discipline fashion to furniture design to visual effects at scad We don't merely teach preservation preservation teaches us When I wrote the first scad catalog in 1979 I knew that among the original eight degree programs. We simply must include historic preservation And today the BFA MA and MFA degree programs in the scad preservation design department Continue to prepare graduates for influential work around the globe Where alumni have taken leadership roles and have worked for the national trust of course as well as the national park service The new york city landmarks preservation commission US capital historical society and elsewhere all together we have more than 45,000 alumni around the world And to think it all started with an idea and one old building I could have never known that my life's work would take me where it has and would lead here tonight to this stage my goodness I want to thank the national trust What would any of us be without you? I want to thank my husband Glenn of the genius behind all scad design and also my parents who taught me to love and care for the past and Especially I'm going to thank our scad family around the world. This honor is really for them It's for all the students out there. It's for a young woman standing on Bull Street in Savannah, Georgia 40 years ago Looking up at an old building that needed a lot of love and marching into those front doors never looking back Thank you