The work, in practice.

Thomas Jefferson Foundation | Monticello

Monticello is the only presidential home designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, receiving approximately 450,000 annual visitors. I held three successive roles there over seventeen years, each expanding in scope: Director of Interpretation and Training, Vice President of Visitor Programs and Services, and Vice President of Strategy and Chief Content Officer.

Contested history interpretation. Beginning in 2005, I built the staff training systems, facilitated dialogue frameworks, security protocols, and interpretive programs that made the history of Monticello as a site of enslavement part of every visitor's experience. Supported by a $3.5 million Mellon Foundation investment, the work attracted national media attention and significant public scrutiny. Results: visitor participation in slavery and Hemings family interpretation programming doubled from 15 percent in 2011 to 30 percent in 2016. Overall visitor satisfaction held consistently at 81 to 83 percent. Guide ratings for both knowledge and friendliness improved by four percentage points. By 2019, the Slavery at Monticello Tour was the second most-selected guided experience on site.

Professional infrastructure. The interpretive principles, evaluation rubrics, hiring standards, and annual training calendar I built in 2005 remain in place twenty years later. That is the clearest measure of durable institutional capacity rather than a one-time intervention.

Evaluation culture. Starting from no evaluation program in 2010, I built a pool of more than 100,000 survey respondents, a monthly Overall Visitor Satisfaction Index dashboard, and data systems used to drive pricing decisions, inform grant applications, develop visitor profiles for marketing, and manage reputational risk. During COVID, the accumulated data allowed leadership to separate signal from noise and respond to external scrutiny with confidence.

Earned revenue. Working with Finance and Marketing colleagues, I designed a visitor segmentation and tiered experience model that grew revenue per visitor from $15.50 to $21.50, a 39 percent increase. Three percent of guests generated 10 percent of revenue, growth that funded additional staff and expanded training investment, without reducing access for price-sensitive visitors.

Grants secured: $5 million or more in competitive grants, including as executive sponsor of a $3.5 million Mellon Foundation investment, as author of a $375,000 NEH oral history digitization grant, and a $150,000 IMLS National Leadership grant.

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

As Vice President of Historic Area Operations, I led more than 400 staff and volunteers, managing a $20 million budget across interpretive and operational teams. I aligned the management structures of the three largest public-facing departments, revised job descriptions for departmental leadership, and made critical leadership changes. I ensured financial stability through resource allocation and oversight of restricted and unrestricted funds, strengthened stakeholder and donor relationships, and served as executive sponsor of capital projects. I restructured departments (Performing Arts, Historical Trades & Skills and Historical Interpretation), brought director roles up to date, and promoted and hired new leadership where needed. Most importantly, I reintroduced, after a substantial cross Foundation effort, Guest Service standards for the Historic Area. These standards are a model for an all-Foundation wide implementation currently underway.

Stratford Hall Historic Preserve

Working with the senior leadership team, I identified the revenue centers with the greatest growth potential and developed a five-year earned revenue strategy roadmap using a weighted prioritization tool: a structured, data-informed framework that scored revenue opportunities against mission alignment, strategic plan fit, operational feasibility, and revenue potential. The leadership team left the engagement with a shared language for prioritization and a framework for evaluating future opportunities independently, not just a set of recommendations.