A Maryland nonprofit organization that trains craftsmen in traditional building skills and which works with the National Park Service to tackle maintenance needs has been honored with the J.M.K. Innovation Prize.

Preservation Maryland was one of ten nonprofit organizations recognized for "tackling America’s most pressing challenges through social innovation." Each of the ten receives up to $175,000 over three years and participates in a learning collaborative of fellow innovators to support their journey as change agents. 

"We have formed a charitable partnership with the Historic Preservation Training Center, which is a unit of the (National) Park Service based in Frederick, Maryland, to expand and increase the capacity of their traditional trades apprecenticeship program," Nicholas Redding, the organization's executive director, explained last week. "The partnership that we formed, we're calling it the Campaign for Historic Trades. The idea is to quickly accelerate the number of trained tradespeople in the nation with the goal of training them. The method is training them by doing this work in national parks all across the country."

Across the park system, these tradesmen will work on repairing iconic facilities. The program involves young adults 18-30 and recent military veterans.

Specific trades the program focuses on include masrony, frame carpentry, finish carpentry, window repair, roofing, painting, and property maintenance and repair, said Redding.

"The focus is on using traditional tools and traditional trades materials and trades practices," he explained. "Different than perhaps a modern construction apprenticeship program. This is really focused on preserving those traditional trades and the ability to rehabilitate historic structrures using the skills, methods, and techniques that have been employed for hundreds of years but are quickly being lost as society focuses more on new build construction. We don't always put enough effort into taking care of what we already have."

Jose Galarza, director of the DesignBuildBLUFF in the University of Utah’s College of Architecture + Planning who served as one of the judges in reviewing proposals for the J.M.K. Innovation Prize, praised the Campaign for Historic Trades proposal.

“Rather than creating new infrastructure and resources, this initiative is tapping into and refining existing ones. The benefit to the trainees is strong, as they get to apprentice into a rewarding career where ideally a job exists for them at the end of their studies,” he said.

Another Prize reviewer, Theresa Pasqual, Native American Liaison-Glen Canyon for the U.S. Department of Interior said, “Investing in this long-term cultivation of tradespeople would not only address the issue of heritage preservation, but also of economics, education, inclusion, and diversity.”

Redding said the Campaign for Historic Trades is involved in recruiting apprentices, providing the training, and placement services for those who complete the program.

"The Park Service's role in this of course is actually management of the projects, completion of the projects," he said. "The talented tradespeople at the training center are actually doing the training. So it's a true public-private partnership." 

This fall five veterans who went through the training helped begin rehabilitation of the Mary Ellen Dogan House at the Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia.

The group was assigned to stabilize the structure, which is the first of a three-phase process of restoring the property. During their assignment, the group removed the non-contributing carport and shed that were attached to the house, stabilized the foundation under the crawl space, and weatherized the exterior.

The second phase will include a complete historic analysis and the third phase will be a partial restoration of the exterior.