Mission: Preservation America is dedicated to documenting the state of preservation in America today and thereby advocating for greater public awareness of local, regional, and national preservation initiatives -- in the hope that more Americans will support and involve themselves in efforts to save and celebrate their diverse, architectural heritage.
Director's Bio.: Ron Tanner is a licensed house inspector in Maryland and a professor of writing and media at
Loyola University-Maryland. He is a widely published author of fiction and non-fiction. His memoir,
From Animal House to Our House: A Love Story (Academy Chicago 2012) tells the story of how he and Jill (his then-girlfriend, now wife) bought condemned property -- a wrecked, former frat house -- and, knowing nothing about fixing houses, brought it back to its original Victorian splendor.
This Old Housemagazine featured their work in 2008.
Ron and Jill now run
Houselove, a DIY website for old-house aficionados.
In 2008, Ron won a grant from the National Park Service to create and direct a cultural preservation project in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a Pacific Island nation.
The Marshall Islands Story Project combines technological training with ethnographic study, teaching Marshallese college students how to interview their elders and collect their traditional tales for postings on a dedicated website. The first phase of the project will be completed in 2013.
In 2012, Ron traveled to forty states in the U.S. to collect interviews for the Preservation America Project. He continues to travel widely to interview and learn from preservationists.
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