former 4c board member stephanie toothman moves to d.c.

The 4Culture community is proud to announce that our own charter 4Culture Board member, Dr. Stephanie Toothman, has moved on to greater heights within the National Park Service. Stephanie was recently named by Director Jon Jarvis as Associate Director for Cultural Resources, and began her new job in Washington, D.C. this month.

Her new responsibilities include oversight of preservation, history, and cultural programs in 392 national parks, and of community partnership programs among federal, Tribal, state and local governments and nonprofits. Familiar programs that reach far beyond the national parks, like the National Register of Historic Places and the Historic American Buildings Survey, will also fall under her purview.

Preservationists in this state know Stephanie in her former position as chief of cultural resources for the NPS Pacific West Region. She has been in the forefront of many big projects that we know and care about locally – the commemoration of the incarceration of Japanese-Americans on Bainbridge Island, the rehab of the Cadillac Hotel for the Klondike Gold Rush NHP in Pioneer Square, the preservation of beloved historic buildings and landscapes at Mt. Rainier National Park, and a host of other successful preservation efforts large and small.

Stephanie served as a board member of 4Culture from its creation in 2003 through 2008. She was very active on the Historic Preservation Advisory Committee, and helped shape 4Culture’s new preservation program. She was a driving force behind the creation of the Seattle/King County Task Force on Maritime Heritage in 2005, an effort that triggered a grass-roots push to create a National Maritime Heritage Area for communities on Puget Sound and Washington’s Pacific coast. And she has been a passionate supporter of the effort to secure Lodging Tax revenue for heritage and the arts in King County.

Here at 4Culture we were privileged to work first-hand with Stephanie, and certainly appreciated the thoughtful, articulate and action-oriented thinking she brings to every issue she touches. Our nation’s cultural heritage has gained a passionate new champion. Congratulations, Stephanie, for this well-deserved promotion!