Thank you, Jen! Welcome, Laurel! Congratulations Frank!

Jennifer T. Nersesian has been selected as the next superintendent to lead Gateway National Recreation Area. This facility is one of the top 10 most visited National Parks.  Jen will be the only woman superintendent assigned to those 10 parks.  We understand perfectly why NPS has chosen Jen for this assignment.  She was a wonderful partner to the Schooner Ernestina serving as a commissioner and then as secretary to the Commission.  We will miss her.

Commissioners Fred Sterner, Steve Walsh, Karl Pastore, Supt. Nersesian, Commissioners Laura Pires-Hester and Gene Monterio.

The Commission and SEMA expressed their appreciation at the September meeting.

Laurel Racine, from the NPS Northeast Museum Services Center, will be serving as Acting Superintendent at New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park over the next few months while the NPS work on filling the permanent position.

Laurel A. Racine comes to New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park from the National Park Service’s Northeast Museum Services Center (NMSC) in Charlestown, MA, which serves eighty NPS sites from Maine to Virginia. She is the Senior Curator for Research and Planning overseeing research and writing projects with a specialization in American material culture and historic house museums. She writes collection policy documents, collection management plan chapters, historic furnishings reports, and exhibit plans. In this work she has engaged with many types of partners, from nonprofits to government agencies to the private sector.

Laurel has worked as a museum educator and/or curator since 1989 at institutions including the Fuller Museum of Art, Heritage Plantation of Sandwich, Pilgrim Hall, Plimoth Plantation, and the Winterthur Museum. Laurel holds a B.A. in art history from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, a certificate in Museum Studies from Tufts University, and an M.A. in Early American Culture from the Winterthur Program at the University of Delaware.

She is delighted to be in New Bedford where she conducted her first historic house walking tour and her husband’s family calls home. Laurel lives in North Attleborough, MA, with her husband and two children.

AND:

In the most recent news from the NPS Frank Barrows, chief of Interpretation and Education at New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, has been awarded the Freeman Tilden Award for the Northeast Region, for his work with the Youth Ambassador Program.

We are all very proud of Frank who has been helping on Ernestina for years!

Frank Barrows working on Ernestina's main boom during the 2006 NPS Work Day.