Richard Moe

president, National Trust for Historic Preservation

Richard Moe, the seventh president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, brings a lifelong interest in history and a career-long commitment to public service to the position. As president, Moe leads the organization in its mission to save the nation's diverse historic places and create more livable communities for all Americans. Under his direction, the National Trust has greatly strengthened its financial base, reaffirmed its commitment to expanding and diversifying the organized preservation movement, become an outspoken and effective advocate of controlling sprawl and encouraging smart growth, and launched innovative initiatives to demonstrate preservation's effectiveness as a tool for community revitalization and as a key element in the fight against climate change. A member of the board of the Ford Foundation, Moe was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Maryland in 1998 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 2005. He was named an honorary member of The American Institute of Architects in 2003 and was the recipient of the Vincent Scully Prize from the National Building Museum in 2007. He is co-author of Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl, a study of the causes of urban decline and the use of historic preservation as a tool for revitalization, published in 1997; and author of The Last Full Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers , a Civil War history published in 1993. A native of Duluth, Minnesota, Moe graduated from Williams College and received a law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School. He held administrative positions in government at the city, state and federal levels and practiced law in Washington, DC, before assuming the presidency of the National Trust in 1993.