Preservation Action’s Hero of the Quarter is an outstanding historic preservation advocate who furthers our mission of making historic preservation a national priority by demonstrating exemplary leadership and making significant contributions to the field of historic preservation!
We’re thrilled to share our first 2024 Hero of the Quarter: Cara Bertron!
Cara Bertron works to shape more equitable cities through community and cultural preservation. She is currently managing community engagement around the City of Austin’s new Equity-Based Preservation Plan. Created by a 26-member community working group and informed by more than 300 people, the draft plan proposes improved and new policies, programs, and tools that meet both historic preservation and equity goals.
The development and release of the draft Equity-Based Preservation Plan are grounded in community voices, with strong support from Cara and colleagues at Austin’s Historic Preservation Office. Racially, ethnically, and geographically diverse members of the Preservation Plan Working Group contributed expertise ranging from technical preservation skills to deep community roots and shaped an ambitious, people-centered vision for local preservation. For the public release of the draft plan, paid community ambassadors and mini-grants to community organizations will support broad, inclusive outreach, particularly to historically marginalized communities.
In previous roles, Cara developed a displacement prevention navigator program, helped facilitate the Action Agenda for Historic Preservation in Legacy Cities with the Preservation Rightsizing Network, and coordinated community-focused planning in Seattle’s Chinatown International District, among other projects aimed at making communities more equitable, affordable, and sustainable. Cara is an experienced facilitator and a strong advocate for compensating community members for their time and skills. She serves as a National Trust Adviser and is a member of the Next City Vanguard.
Cara’s favorite public places are Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, Oslo’s central library, and Barton Springs at night. A fifth-generation Texan, Cara has a soft spot for older industrial cities and the Pacific Northwest.
Thank you, Cara, for embodying what it means to be a Preservation Action Hero!
Our 2023 4th Hero of the Quarter: Joe Quinata!
Joe Quinata is currently the Chief Program Officer of the Guam Preservation Trust and served a three-year term (2021-2023) as the Chairperson for the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) Advisory Group and an ex-officio member of the NTHP Board of Trustees. Quinata is a founder and board member of the nonprofit organization Asian & Pacific Islander Americans in Historic Preservation (APIAHiP), which is dedicated to protecting historic places and cultural resources significant to Asian and Pacific Islander Americans through historic preservation and heritage conservation.
His career in historic preservation started more than 30 years ago when he opened the office of the Guam Preservation Trust, a non-profit, public corporation. Quinata received the 2011 NTHP Trustees’ Award for Organizational Excellence for his administration of the Guam Preservation Trust. He was cited an Honorary Architect from the American Institute of Architects, Guam and Micronesia Chapter, and is a recipient of the Pioneer in Preservation Award bestowed by APIAHiP.
Joe grew up in the heritage village of Humåtak, Guam, where he initiated the heritage walking tour with Humåtak youth as docents to historic sites and coral reef youth ambassadors learning and caring for the environment, ridge to reef. Joe is a volunteer mediator and board member of the mediation center Inafa’måolek.
Thank you, Joe, for embodying what it means to be a Preservation Action Hero!
Our 2023 3rd Hero of the Quarter: Noah Oliver!
Noah Isaiah Oliver is a Cultural Geographer and GeoArchaeologist forthe Yakama Nation Cultural Resource Program (YNCRP), also known as “Námí Tamánwit” which translates as “The Creators Law” in the language known as Ichishkinsinwit. The Creators Law isthe fundamental principle that YNCRP is tasked with supporting. It includes five elements that make up the Yakama Nation’s approach to perpetuating and protecting its cultural heritage and traditions – and by protecting and being caretakers for these resources, we honor the gift of life. These gifts include the Earth – our mother; The Water – giver of life; All The Living Things – they have a pattern and purpose to support each other; and our Obligation – to those before us who allowed us to live by passing on these resources, to those today that we share them with, and to those who come after us and are yet unborn.
With his colleagues, and in consultation with local, state, and federal governments, Noah advances The Creator’s Law within the over 12 million acres of the Yakama Nation’s ancestral territory. He helps gain consideration for sacred lands through environmental histories, archaeological reporting, Traditional Cultural Property Evaluations, and site selection processes. He also works with conservation entities and partners to help find long term solutions for impacts to sacred lands that perpetuate a way of life for tribal members. More recently, Noah has begun to do more public outreach, including presentations, commemorative signage projects, sculpture projects, videography projects, trainings, and lobbying efforts.
Some of Noah’s recent accomplishments on behalf of the Yakama Nation include:
- Negotiating the purchase and transfer of lands for one of the largest and most productive Native American fisheries on the Columbia River, Celilo Falls.
- Spearheading the creation of the Yakama Nation Conservation Land Trust with support from the Yakama Nation Tribal Council.
- Partnering with Tribal Members and the Roslyn Downtown Association for a Sacred Acknowledgement Sculpture Project that bridges cultural boundaries and celebrates the Creators Law through Sculpture.
- Working with the Kittitas Environmental Education Network to teach community values and stewardship to shape the function of an interpretive center.
- Participating in a discussion panel and presenting at the Washington State Dept. of Archaeology and Historic Preservation Tribal Summit on Energy Development regarding Issues Experienced with Energy Development Projects.
- Partnering with a diverse array of supporters for the acquisition and repatriation of sacred lands and sites vital to the environmental health and perpetuation of culture, most recently the acquisition project for a sacred site known as “The Frogs Home.”
- Fundraising to build a Language and Cultural Center that would both provide new offices for tribal members as well as interpretive trails and works to teach children and build stronger communities.
- Sponsoring grants to include tribal cultural design elements into affordable housing with materials sourced from sustainable forestry products. One particularly important design element is the inclusion of a longhouse.
Noah’s long-term goal is to establish conservation partnerships and programs that support and restore the Tribe’s seasonal subsistence activities, stewardship, and religious and ceremonial activities within Yakama Nation’s ancestral lands, from wintering villages to summer berry fields. Preserving the seasonal route connects the people with the land in ways that nothing else does. The language, ceremonies, and stewardship of the resources are all integral to the culture and how we honor the gift of life in kind with each other.
Thank you, Noah, for embodying what it means to be a Preservation Action Hero!
Our 2023 2nd Hero of the Quarter: Sehila Mota Casper of California
Sehila Mota Casper is the inaugural Executive Director for Latinos in Heritage Conservation, where she works to ensure that the preservation field is inclusive, equitable, and rooted in community. She previously worked as a senior field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the City of Austin, where she championed a just preservation movement.
Over the past decade, she has organized national Latinx preservation conferences and led efforts to save National Treasures such as the LULAC Council 60 Clubhouse and Rio Vista Farm, the first U.S. Bracero Reception and Processing Center. She serves on the board of the National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites, Preservation Texas, Texas Dance Hall Preservation, the Texas State Board of Review, and the Friends of the Texas Historical Commission. Sehila was a 2013 Texas Historical Commission Preservation Scholar and the recipient of the 2014 National Trust for Historic Preservation Mildred Colodny Diversity scholarship. Sehila is a graduate of Texas Woman’s University Department of Visual Arts and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Historic Preservation from Savannah College of Art and Design.
Founded in 2014, Latinos in Heritage Conservation (LHC) is the leading organization for the preservation of Latinx places, stories, and cultural heritage in the United States. LHS is a diverse network of intergenerational advocates conserving Latinx sites and living cultures in the fabric of American society, affirming the value of our history in the hemispheric struggle for social justice. They amplify local Latinx historic preservation efforts, strategize nationally on preservation issues that affect our communities, and work to increase Latinx representation and social equity in the heritage field.
Over the next five years, LHC will transform the preservation movement at a national scale through creative projects and intergenerational collaborations that will amplify Latinx voices and perspectives.
Thank you, Sehila, for embodying what it means to be a Preservation Action Hero!
Our 2023 1st Hero of the Quarter: Sydney Andrea Landers of California
Sydney Andrea Landers is an emerging historic preservation professional with a passion for equity in preservation, affordable housing, and comics. A native Texan, she is now based in Los Angeles and works in historic preservation consulting.
Sydney is the author and illustrator of the graphic novel, “AGBANY: the birth of the historic preservation movement,” which she self-published in summer 2022. In the summer of 2021, Sydney interned with the National Trust for Historic Preservation as an Affordable Housing Intern, researching the intersection of affordable housing and historic preservation through the use of rehabilitation tax credits to develop a report.
Sydney holds a Masters of Science in Historic Preservation and Bachelors of Arts in Art History (with a minor in Architectural History and Certificate in Museum Studies) from the University of Texas at Austin. Sydney’s graduate thesis concerned the university housing cooperatives in Ann Arbor, Austin, and Berkeley. Her work views the co-ops as the intersection of affordable housing, adaptive reuse, and community building.
She is also a past recipient of Preservation Action Foundation’s Bruce MacDougal Advocacy Scholars Program Scholarship, saying, “The Advocacy Scholars program was an eye-opening program that allowed me to expand my knowledge on federal historic preservation policy. Having researched it from an academic standpoint, it was exciting to see my state’s delegation speaking with lawmakers first hand.”
Thank you, Sydney, for embodying what it means to be a Preservation Action Hero!
Want to nominate a Preservation Action Hero of the Quarter in your community? Click the button below to complete our nomination form!