About Our Theme: “The Collaborative Spirit”

From the very start, Michigan citizens have spoken up when important historic properties faced threats. Homeowners would organize to protect a neighborhood. Others raised their voices to save an iconic city hall. Business owners fought to keep a traditional downtown from being emptied by urban sprawl.

Greater legitimacy was given these citizen voices with the 1966 passage of the National Historic Preservation Act. In Michigan, the country’s Bicentennial in 1976 brought forth a decade’s-long outpouring of local histories, photo-inventories of historic buildings, and historic designations in every corner of the state. Celebrating Michigan’s cultural distinction came to a crescendo with Michigan’s own Sesquicentennial in 1987.

Michiganders involved in historic preservation could now see there were others ready to collaborate. Fast forward half-a century! Interested individuals are now joined by trained practitioners in the field–historians and preservationists, architects and engineers, anthropologists and archaeologists. Craftspeople and tradespeople with traditional skills make the work possible. Ancillary expertise has grown up among attorneys, accountants, realtors, and others.

What this year’s conference celebrates is the “collaborative spirit” that distinguishes the field of historic preservation. You may be working for a living in the preservation trades or professions, but you regularly work side-by-side with those who are self-taught, students, and those embarking on second careers. Few other fields accommodate such a mixture.

Now in its 44th year, the MHPN conference welcomes a wide variety of participants, each returning to their community with new contacts and fresh inspiration. How fitting that we’re in Kalamazoo! Through the collaboration of many, the City has raised preservation from an interesting possibility to a necessary consideration.

Join us in Kalamazoo!