 Let me now turn things over to the National Trust's new president and chief executive officer, Paul Edmondson. As I shared with you, as I shared with many of you this summer, I could not be more pleased with the appointment of Paul as our next president. Paul is a person of great integrity and a preservationist of the First Order. Before taking on the role of president earlier this summer, Paul served for many years as the National Trust's general counsel and chief legal officer. In that capacity, he has worked to champion the strong enforcement and interpretation of preservation laws to find effective solutions to complex preservation controversies and to support the work of colleagues and partners across the country. His knowledge of the challenges and opportunities for the preservation movement come from decades of his personal engagement in preservation. I am delighted that someone with such deep experience, commitment and integrity is leading the National Trust. Please join me in welcoming the National Trust's ninth president, Paul Edmondson. Thank you, Tim. Good afternoon. Welcome to Denver and welcome to Pass Forward, the National Preservation Conference. First, let me thank you for being here. You are what makes the preservation movement what it is, a vibrant community of people dedicated to saving places that matter. In our cities, on our main streets, in our small towns and across the countryside. I'm fortunate to count all of you as colleagues in this important work and that's why I'm really honored to serve as the ninth president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. As Tim mentioned earlier this year, I was asked by our board to serve as the interim president of the National Trust. And I told Tim at the time that it felt like I'd been handed the keys to the family station wagon with the main responsibility just to keep the car on the road. With my move from interim president to actual president, my responsibilities are not just to steer the station wagon, but also to navigate the trip forward. And as with any family road trip that I've taken, I'm finding that there are lots of backseat drivers. They have many different views about the correct way forward, as well as some with strong opinions about wrong turns we may have made in the past. But I really welcome hearing from all members of the preservation family as we continue on this journey together. This afternoon, by way of introducing myself and talking about my priorities for the National Trust and my hopes for the preservation movement, I want to highlight three themes that I think have defined my career at the trust. And I want to do so because I see those same themes as key to the success of the organization and to the success of the preservation movement. The first theme I want to touch on is the power of preservation advocacy. And considering my background as a longtime preservation lawyer at the National Trust, this really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. As many of you know, I've worked at the trust for more than three decades. All of that time spent in our law division, which has a national reputation for effective advocacy. Let me start by saying at the outset that preservation is often rightly criticized as the movement of no, and I'll talk about that further in a minute. But there are times when one simply has to say no, stand up and say no. My views about advocacy as an essential tool for preservation were established fairly early in my career. In 1993, the Walt Disney Corporation announced plans to create Disney's America, a massive history-based theme park in the Virginia countryside, ironically in an area that was itself quite historically significant. In a coalition of organizations, including the National Trust Joint Forces, and together we convinced one of the nation's largest and most powerful corporations to change its mind. Litigation in that case was not the driving force. What really changed Disney's mind was the attitude of the public. By showing the deep and layered significance of this place and reminding the public that this would be lost forever, we were able to bring together powerful new voices for preservation. The trust has continued to be engaged in this type of advocacy throughout my career. And in fact, just last month, together with a local preservation organization, Friends of the Frank J. Woods Bridge, and a national partner, the Historic Bridge Foundation, we filed suit to prevent demolition of this beautiful, 87-year-old steel trust bridge between the towns of Brunswick and Topchum, Maine. State and federal highway agencies are seeking to justify a new modern bridge by using questionable cost estimates when it would make better sense simply to repair the Historic Bridge. And as with many preservation battles over the years, a dedicated group of community members is partnering with us to take on this battle not only in federal court but also in the court of public opinion. They're engaged in fighting back because this is about saving something that enriches the quality of their lives and defines their shared identity. We're honored to join them in this. At a much larger scale, 500 miles from where we are this afternoon is the Bearers' Ears National Monument, a highly significant and sacred cultural landscape representing more than 12,000 years of human history and originally totaling almost 1.4 million acres. Nine Native American nations have ties to Bearers' Ears and tribes still return to the Twin Buttes to connect with their ancestors. This largely undeveloped area is filled with cultural and natural resources, which is why it was designated as a national monument by President Obama in 2009. Yet in 2017, the current administration reduced that designation by 85 percent, a reduction that is unprecedented in the history of U.S. national monuments. The National Trust is working with the Bearers' Ears Intertribal Coalition together with a host of conservation groups to fight this reduction that would leave the area's cultural sites at risk from a variety of land use activities as well as by looting and vandalism. I began my career in preservation not as a lawyer but as an archaeologist, so I have a firsthand idea of what's at stake at Bearers' Ears and why it is so important that we fight to protect this special place. My last advocacy example, also still pending, is another David and Goliath battle in which we're taking on one of the most powerful energy corporations in the country. There are few places as central to our complex American story as Jamestown, Virginia, and only the place where our American experiment in democracy began, but also the place where the roots of slavery first took hold in North America. And the Lower James River is a cultural landscape that is steeped in Native American history as well. But today, this cultural landscape is marred by 17 electric transmission towers constructed by Dominion Energy, reaching heights nearly as tall as a 30-storey building. Dominion constructed them quickly under a permit unlawfully granted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Why do I say unlawfully? We know that because in partnership with Preservation Virginia, we took them to federal court, and that's what the court said. The Corps of Engineers was instructed to go back to the drawing board and explore other options. And in fact, studies have shown that there are other ways to bring reliable, affordable energy to Dominion customers without sacrificing this important part of American history. Advocacy to save historic places has been a core part of the preservation movement since its start. And most state and local preservation organizations have their origin stories that derive from specific fights that they have taken on over the years, from New York's Penn Station to Larimer Square here in Denver to countless other examples across America. Some of those battles have been lost, but many have been won. But ultimately, if we aren't willing to join together to fight for these special places, we aren't doing our jobs as preservationists, and the public will never understand the value of what we want to preserve unless we're willing to stand up and fight for it. The second theme I want to talk about this afternoon is innovation. And as I do, let me come back to that issue of preservation as the movement of no. As important as it is to fight for endangered places, it's also essential to bring creative solutions to preservation challenges. And the broader preservation community agrees. In a recent survey conducted by our preservation division, 85% of those who responded agreed that greater innovation is needed in preservation practice. That innovation can take many forms. For example, developing grassroots solutions has been the goal of an important planning effort in Miami's Little Havana, a densely populated neighborhood that is home to immigrants from Cuba, South and Central America, and other parts of the Caribbean. Little Havana is distinguished by its tree-lined streets with small apartment buildings, bungalows, and mom-and-pop stores. But the neighborhoods under intense pressure to develop like the adjacent areas of high-rise development, high-rise offices, and apartments. Although known locally and nationally as an iconic historic place, Little Havana is also a dynamic urban neighborhood whose residents face a range of challenges and threats, including poverty, substandard housing, displacement, poor transportation options, and insufficient open space. To address these issues, we worked in partnership with civic and nonprofit groups from the fields of public health, historic preservation, architectural design, and urban planning to create the Little Havana Mamparta Revitalization Plan. Developed over the course of more than two years and with the input of more than 2,700 residents and stakeholders, the plan relies on increasing incentives for preservation, reducing barriers to small-scale infill development, and respecting the existing heritage of Little Havana. I describe it as an informed grassroots approach to planning rather than a traditional top-down regulatory approach, and that's a big change from the usual practice. Now, let me go from the community level to talk about individual historic sites. Historic sites are a vitally important part of preservation, and it's also important that we bring innovation to how we operate those properties, embracing their multi-layered stories and engaging new audiences with that history through completely new approaches. Over the past six years, one of the most rewarding projects that I've had the opportunity to work on has been to help reinvent Cooper-Millera Adobe, a National Trust historic site in Monterey, California. The city of Monterey is actually 80 years older than the state of California, and it was an important part of Mexico as the capital of the sprawling Alta California province until 1846. Cooper-Millera Adobe is a two-and-a-half acre property located in the heart of Monterey's National Historic Landmark District, and it includes two Adobe residences, two Adobe commercial buildings, and a distinctive pair of historic redwood barns all surrounded by an Adobe wall. Cooper-Millera has been a National Trust historic site since the 1980s, and it was operated for many years on our behalf by California State Parks. Several years ago, State Parks let us know that they could not continue to operate the site. They had no endowment. So we took the opportunity to work with partners in the for-profit sector to develop a new operating model. We call that model shared use. Shared use because the property now includes both museum spaces and businesses, all sharing the site in its beautiful gardens and all collaborating to tell the stories of the property's rich history. Today, National Trust staff members operate the two Adobe residences where we ignore all the rules of historic house museums. There's no admission. Visitors are encouraged to sit on the historic furniture or play the historic piano. All the exhibits are bilingual, and we mix period art with contemporary art from local partners. The barns at Cooper-Millera have been transformed into a beautiful and profitable event center. Historic buildings on the site are also home to a restaurant and a bakery, and a portion of the revenue from those businesses supports preservation and museum operations. But shared use is so much more than simply bringing businesses on to a historic property. At Alta Bakery, named for the Mexican province, the Cooper family's historic cattle brands hang on the wall and are featured in their chocolates, in their breads, and even the latte art. Now let's hear from Ben Spungen from the Alta Bakery who will tell you a little bit about their operations and what it means to him to be a part of Cooper-Millera. The vision for Alta is to be open in the day for the community on this beautiful property. So the Cooper-Millera Adobe is a two and a half acre beautiful historic property in downtown Monterey. We'd like to be a part of the community here. We want to be open for the public. We want to create things that are beautiful and organic and natural. Our menu is seasonal. We like to think that we start with one foot in the garden and one foot in the kitchen. We want everything to be very fresh and natural and we hope people enjoy it. The National Trust who owns the property here has entrusted us with caring for the corner store which used to be a bakery in the 1860s called the Pioneer Bakery. We wanted to bring the bakery back and create Alta Bakery for the community in Monterey. I just want the Alta Bakery to be known as a place that people can come and have a great soup, a really great pizza, a beautiful bread, a glass of wine and hang out with their friends and family. I think the Alta Bakery couldn't be what Alta Bakery is without being at the Cooper-Millera Adobe and we love it here. And they produced this video on their own without even telling us about it. It's fantastic. The shared use model is bringing new audiences to hear the stories of Cooper-Millera, people who would never have come to visit a house museum, making it a part of their daily lives. Together with the community of Monterey, we've opened the next chapter of the history of Cooper-Millera, offering a solution for historic sites and house museums around the country as they work to sustain themselves both culturally and financially. Innovations at Cooper-Millera would not have been possible without partnerships, which is my third and final theme. At Cooper-Millera, our success was tied to an unexpected partnership with a shopping center developer. And we had to build trust with local preservation groups who initially opposed our plans, but who later became some of our strongest allies. To give another example of effective partnerships, this summer I visited an incredible place that is being preserved by a committed group of local partners that we are proud to support through our African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. God's Little Acre in Newport, Rhode Island is our country's oldest African burial ground, a cultural landscape rich in both the stories of the individual people buried there and the broader narrative of American history. The passage of more than three centuries together with simple neglect have resulted in the loss of many headstones and damage to many others. But a group of individuals and organizations from across Newport have banded together to make sure that this place and its stories are preserved and shared. Earlier this year we were honored to support them with a $50,000 grant from the Action Fund. And during my visit, I learned that our grant will triple the number of headstones that will be restored over the next two years. Let's hear from Keith Stokes, a former National Trust advisor who leads this work on why it is so important. So as early as 1650, Newport had a burial place where anyone, regardless of race or class or ethnicity, could be buried. By 1705, the northwest section of this burial ground were starting to see enslaved Africans buried there. And over the next 100 years, hundreds and hundreds of markers and hundreds and hundreds of burials are being made at that burying ground. We believe there were at least 3,000 burials during the life cycle of that burying ground. Stokes and his family are descendants of some of the first Africans brought to the New World aboard the sea flower, the first documented slave ship to arrive in Rhode Island in 1696. My own family is buried here. But more importantly, it's a sense of African identity. I mean, this is a place where men and women of African descent actually lived in this community and were buried here. And it gives me a direct connectivity to the history of my own community. Today, less than 300 grave markers of early Africans and later African Americans have survived in this cemetery. Stokes is trying to preserve those remaining while chronicling fascinating life stories of people like Duchess Camino. She's enslaved in the household of William L. R. Channing. William L. R. Channing grows up to become one of the early founders of the Unitarian Church in America. William L. R. Channing talks about the fact that his abolition of slavery comes from growing up and being cared for by this Duchess Camino. He actually etches on her marker, her epitaph, which says she's one of the most pious, industrious black women. But most importantly, Duchess Camino wins her freedom by selling pastry cakes in Newport. She later becomes the pastry queen of Rhode Island and becomes quite wealthy. And she purchases the freedom of herself and her remaining children. Through the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, we've given away $2.7 million over the past two years to support bricks-and-mortar projects, interpretation, and organizational development. This program was created with new funding partners, and it's allowed the National Trust to cede new partnerships with other organizations across the country who are engaged in this important work of interpreting and preserving African American culture and history. These kinds of multifaceted partnerships are critical to the work of the National Trust and critical to the field of preservation. To give another example, our National Fund for Sacred Places is a $20 million grant fund supported by the Lilly Endowment. It brings together our expertise with that of our long-term allies at Partners for Sacred Places, the only national organization dedicated to the sound stewardship and active community use of older sacred places. Each year, more than 6,000 houses of worship close, many of them local landmarks. Those closures don't just affect individual congregations or individual buildings. They also affect the social service and community groups that use those buildings and that serve their communities. Together with Partners for Sacred Places, we're doing something about this. The National Trust provides capital grants and technical expertise to help restore and preserve historic churches, synagogues, and other places of worship, while Partners for Sacred Places advances the organizational development of those same congregations. Together, our impacts on the long-term preservation of those places is greater than if we did this work alone. As I hope these examples illustrate, preservation just doesn't work without partnerships. That includes state and local preservation organizations, now well represented by the National Preservation Partners Network, as well as other emerging and established preservation organizations and allies in related fields. The bottom line is that preservation is something that we do together and something that brings us together. And I think everyone here understands this since that's the way you work every day to save places that matter. But I want you to know that strong partnerships are both a goal and a value of the National Trust. In the coming year, you'll see the National Trust continuing the work that I've described this afternoon, but also with new efforts to expand our impacts on our supporters. These will include a campaign to elevate the stories and preserve the places related to women's history as we mark the centennial of women's suffrage in the United States. To start with the support of American Express, we've just launched this year's Partners in Preservation Campaign. This program will provide grants totaling $2 million to sites where women made history, identified for us by our field staff and our colleagues at Main Street America. I want to encourage each of you to go online to voteyourmainstreet.org to help select the winners. We will also be conducting a lobbying campaign and close collaboration with the National Trust Community Investment Corporation and the Historic Tax Credit Coalition to expand and improve historic tax credits at the state and federal levels. And we will be working with community leaders, business and property owners and other neighborhood stakeholders to identify solutions to improve equity and address displacement in historically African-American neighborhoods. We will do all of this in partnership with valued allies across the country who will do this as advocates, but at the same time seeking innovative solutions to keep historic places of all kinds vibrant and protected cherished and beautiful, inclusive and sustainable. So thank you for being here at Pass Forward. Thank you for being part of the preservation movement. And thank you for saving the places that tell our shared stories and that bring us together. Thank you all.