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I write to you today, as Executive Director of APT, at a tumultuous time in the U.S. and, as a result, across the globe. Like each of you, I have been carefully monitoring the tremendous changes coming from Washington, D.C., particularly their immense negative impacts on the preservation, museum, and history communities. I have been in conversation with peers and colleagues as we grapple with the appropriate response for each of our organizations.
I feel it is important to try and address the turmoil resulting from the new Trump administration. It is impossible to keep up with the rapid-fire pronouncements on policy, staffing cuts, and trade coming from Washington, and I’m certain that aspects of what I write will be outdated by the time this reaches your inbox. What we know right now is that our field, community, and people we know are affected—some directly, but all of us in some way—in both dramatic and subtle ways. People will suffer, as will historic resources.
To the valued members and partners of APT, please know that as an organization, we do not support the aggressive, confrontational tone, or harsh and cruel policies of President Trump and his administration. We do not support actions that show complete ignorance of their impacts and dismantle programs and policies that align with the work of APT’s members who protect and preserve cultural heritage. Despite current events—and perhaps because of them—the APT community is more essential than ever in supporting, training, and educating one another while filling emerging gaps.
To our non-U.S. members feeling the brunt of the President’s international and trade policies, we do not support rhetoric threatening national sovereignty and upending trade. This rhetoric undoubtedly will affect your projects, work, and the global economy. Given the active leadership roles of many Canadians in APT, the fraying of the relationship between the U.S. and Canada is particularly disheartening.
We’ve heard from several of our Canadian members expressing unease, astonishment, and anger, some informing us that they are not planning on coming to the U.S. for our conference in November, out of personal concern and as a form of protest. Others have noted they are not participating in anything American, which extends to engaging with our activities. I completely understand, respect, and sympathize with these reactions, even though a government doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinions of all its citizens, professional associations, or nonprofit organizations. APT stands behind our members and their countries and denounces President Trump’s rhetoric and trade actions against Canada and other partners.
APT was established as an international organization, with heritage professionals from the U.S. and Canada as founding partners, and has expanded to include active members worldwide. We continue to view our Canadian and non-U.S. members as equal partners in our organization. Although our incorporation, staff, and greatest number of members are currently in the U.S., APT considers our peer and partner network to be far broader. And the power of APT is in the collegiality, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing among our members, regardless of their home country and political climate.
APT is promptly launching a new area of our website as a resource for the community to access and share technical information we fear has or will be removed from currently available sources. It will grow over time. As an organization focused on the technical side of preservation we feel this is an area where APT can be most helpful and aligned with our mission while simultaneously supporting and engaging with organizations that are more fully advocacy and policy-focused. Our Job Board is also always available as a resource.
Below is an article I prepared for APT’s quarterly member newsletter Communiqué, which will soon be distributed to our members. In this sensitive time, I felt it important to share this information and its additional details on these topics as soon as possible and more broadly.
Sincerely,
Greg Galer, PhD, HonAIA, HREDFP
Executive Director
Excerpt from Spring 2025 Communiqué
Preservation and Politics
By Greg Galer, Executive Director
This is, without a doubt, a turbulent time in the U.S., the most I’ve seen in my lifetime, and the preservation community is certainly affected by its impacts. With so much information—and misinformation—circulating, and the resulting variations in what you may be hearing, I want to share what I know.
Conversations at APTNE Symposium and Washington Preservation Lobby Week
I am in regular conversations and meetings with the highest level of preservation leaders in the U.S. While APT isn’t an advocacy-focused organization like most others in these meetings, it is essential that we stay informed and actively participate to reinforce our role as an international leader in the field. APT’s perspective is unique and distinct from most others on these calls, which are primarily policy and advocacy groups or regulatory bodies.
In late February, I joined nearly 300 people at the APT Northeast Chapter’s Annual Meeting and Symposium and the most frequent and passionate conversations outside of the formal program centered on the disruption of norms, policies, and laws by the Trump administration. In the wake of recent changes, uncertainty and anxiety have gripped many professionals in the preservation and cultural resources sector. Colleagues looked to me for information and wanted to know how APT is affected.
Neither the questions nor concern stopped with APT. What do I know of our friends and peers in federal agencies such as the National Park Service (NPS), the General Services Administration (GSA), the Smithsonian Institution, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP)? What about policies and programs such as the Historic Preservation Fund, historic tax credits, and policies and regulations that protect historic resources in the U.S.? As these critical preservation entities and mechanisms face unprecedented budget and staff cuts and uncertainty, how much will we undermine decades of progress in advancing cultural heritage protection? How much will we backslide from the progress being made to broaden the accuracy and richness of interpretation of people and places or to address the need for resilience in historic properties to face a changing climate? Many of these programs are now lost or threatened as is financial support for historic conservation, and the impacts are likely devastating to our field. I provide more details below.
How will the downstream effects of federal cuts in programs and staff impact our non-governmental peers such as cultural resource management firms, architects, engineers, contractors, and other affiliated professions who work on historic resources? The ripple effects will disrupt the intricate professional ecosystem that sustains our national historic preservation efforts, threatening the livelihoods of specialists and the integrity of cultural resource management across multiple disciplines.
Just a few days later, I was in Washington, D.C., for Preservation Lobby Week, a collaborative event organized by Preservation Action and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers (NCSHPO). I joined approximately 200 peers for an intensive two-day program of internal discussions, strategic planning, and direct congressional engagement.
Our first day was dedicated to comprehensive briefings. The following day, we took our mission to Capitol Hill, where I joined the delegation from Virginia, which is where I live, in a series of meetings with congressional staff. What emerged was a surprisingly unified sentiment of concern and uncertainty. Notably, even Republican congressional offices appeared apprehensive and somewhat puzzled by the rapid-fire directives coming from the White House. They expressed genuine concern about potential impacts on their districts and constituents. I didn’t hear a single voice expressing wholesale support for what was happening. In our group report-out meetings, a consistent narrative emerged. Representatives from 45 states and territories echoed similar sentiments, suggesting a widespread, bipartisan unease about the unfolding political landscape. Yet, here we are weeks later and the onslaught continues.
How are APT and the preservation community impacted?
Here is what I know:
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APT has experienced minimal direct financial disruption. While holding a few U.S. federal grants through the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT), the organization currently has no outstanding grant reimbursements pending.
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APT may experience a decline in conference and program attendance, particularly from international members and those experiencing job displacement. Travel and conference attendance for U.S. federal employees is for the most part terminated. We are adjusting our conference projections accordingly.
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APT may also see a potential reduction in annual conference sponsorships if the U.S. economic landscape deteriorates, especially in design and construction sectors. Non-US sponsors may also be hesitant to participate.
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There have been widespread reductions in staff across critical federal preservation departments and the cuts in staff positions and departments seem to grow daily. There have been major job losses at NPS, GSA, IMLS, preservation officers throughout the federal government … too many to list, and I’m certain more that I haven’t heard about (or were announced after I wrote this).
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ACHP, a primary U.S. preservation regulatory agency, is currently unable to conduct business due to forced board member resignations and lack of leadership. As of this writing, the board currently cannot bring anything to a vote as the agency does not have a Chair, Acting Chair, or quorum.
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Many State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs), Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPOs), and federal preservation grant recipients have had funds frozen with varying duration and uncertain resolution.
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Many Executive Orders will impact preservation policy. As one example, President Trump issued the “National Energy Emergency” Executive Order on January 20, 2025, which allows federal agencies to circumvent reviews required under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Impacts from other Executive Orders are unclear but certainly contain language that could be interpreted to negatively impact historic preservation policy.
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Language and representation matter, and there are ongoing efforts to censor and erase language in grant programs, at federal historic sites, on websites, and elsewhere. These efforts include removing inclusive terminology; systematically eliminating words like "diversity," "equity," and "inclusion"; and reducing LGBTQ+ representation in official documentation. The variety of anti-DEI Executive Orders has caused huge amounts of information to be removed from public access including websites.
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Similarly, items that reference climate change or resilience are disappearing as well. This erasure includes entire studies and guidance that were a valuable resource to our community and beyond including FEMA resources.
What can APT do?
These are uncertain times, for sure. The landscape is shifting beneath our feet almost daily, with information coming in fragments and rarely giving us the full picture. We're all feeling the weight of what's happening—the anxiety, the uncertainty, and the very real fear about what might be coming next for our historic resources and our professional community. I want you to know that we see you. We understand the sleepless nights, the worried conversations, the growing sense of unease about the future of preservation. We are absolutely committed to standing with you during this challenging moment and finding an appropriate role for APT.
Our mission has always been supporting our members with education and peer networking (which is more important than ever), expanding our reach and impact, supporting efforts to grow the influence of APT members, and fostering proper treatment of historic resources. While we are not an advocacy organization, we refuse to stand on the sidelines. We will continue to monitor changes and engage with other national preservation leaders and find mission-aligned opportunities to help in this situation and assist our members.
In addition to existing online technical resources and our Job Board, today APT is launching a new, evolving web page for free technical information. This is an attempt to safeguard and continue to make available knowledge that is already becoming less accessible. Please go to apti.org/technical-resources on our website. You can help in this effort by passing along resources to us at [email protected].
In addition, we're exploring avenues to support our members, to amplify your voices, and to ensure that the critical work of preserving our historic resources isn't diminished. In that light, we are also collecting specific stories from our members of impacts they’ve seen or experienced as a result of the rapidly shifting federal position. Please send them along to us using this form.
How APT’s Perspective Can Help
Amid all the uncertainty, I did find a tiny spark of hope during my meetings in D.C. There seemed to be some genuine interest from Congress in strengthening the Federal Historic Tax Credit (HTC), which was heartening. But I wasn't about to let anyone off the hook with just surface-level support. I was clear in my meetings that congressional members who support the HTC need to stand up against federal departments being gutted (such as the NPS). They need to support reauthorization of the Historic Preservation Fund (which is critical to the operation of SHPOs and THPOs). The HTC depends entirely on the dedicated professionals at federal and state levels who provide oversight, technical guidance, and careful review. Without those hard-working staff, the tax credit is just an empty promise. Real support means protecting the people and institutions that give this preservation tool unmatched impact. To support the HTC without supporting this other funding is hollow support. It was my chance to connect the dots for them—to show that preservation requires a network of experts, including technical experts. This is a place where APT members can play a role: contact your representatives, be specific based on your knowledge and experience, and explain why technical understanding is essential.
During our meetings, I kept coming back to a basic truth: these staff reductions aren't savings at all—they're actually a ticking time bomb of massive future expenses. As APT members know better than most, when we strip away technical preservation expertise from agencies like NPS and GSA, we're not saving money; we’re setting up a financial disaster. I've seen it time and again—a small $20,000 repair, if not handled with the right technical knowledge, can balloon into a $200,000 or even a $2 million problem in just a few short years. It's like trying to save money by not changing the oil in your car, only to end up with a destroyed engine. These preservation professionals aren't bureaucrats—they're the guardians who prevent catastrophic, expensive damage to our historic buildings and places.
My strategy? Show how preserving technical expertise isn't just about protecting history; it's about protecting budgets and the shared national legacy. By linking something everyone seems to love, like the Historic Tax Credit (which creates jobs and affordable housing while generating positive tax revenue with private investment), to the critical federal staff and programs that underlie it, we might just have a chance to push back against this wholesale destruction of expertise.
I want you to know that APT is not stepping back. We’ve been in the mix with top-level national organizations, gathering information and engaging behind the scenes, speaking directly with other preservation leaders, and determining the most impactful course of action, all while remaining true to our mission and focus. We’re fully committed to navigating these challenging waters together and welcome your thoughts and feedback. We're actively working on meaningful ways to support our members and the community, to be the lifeline and resource you need right now. Let us know how you think we can help.
This is precisely why organizations like ours exist: When the landscape gets rough and when uncertainty feels overwhelming, we become more than just a professional association. We become a community, a support network, and a collective voice. We'll keep our ears to the ground, our eyes wide open, and our hearts focused on what matters most: supporting each other and protecting the work to which we've dedicated our lives.
We may not have all the answers, but we have something powerful: each other. And that's going to make all the difference.
As an immediate task, please help us by recommending or providing online technical resources that APT can host and continue to provide access. To do so, please email them to [email protected] with the subject line “Technical Resource.” And share stories of the impacts you are seeing using this form.
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