National Trust for Historic Preservation Names Estevan Rael-Gálvez, Ph.D., as Vice President of Historic Sites

Posted March 21, 2011 | Contact pr@savingplaces.org or 202-588-6141

Washington, D.C. (March 21, 2011) - The National Trust for Historic Preservation has named Estevan Rael-Gálvez, Ph.D., as its Vice President of Historic Sites.

A native of New Mexico, Dr. Rael-Gálvez currently serves as the Executive Director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The NHCC hosts award winning programming on a 51-acre campus, which includes an art museum, a performing arts center, an archive/library and a vibrant educational department.   Prior to his time at the NHCC, Dr. Rael-Gálvez served eight years as the State Historian of New Mexico, the leading advocate and authority on New Mexico history, implementing a scholars in residence program, an internship program and the nationally award winning New Mexico Digital History Project.  Dr. Rael-Gálvez has also served as the chairman of the New Mexico Cultural Properties Review Committee, the advisory-policy making board that oversees the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division and establishes preservation policy for the State of New Mexico. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Rael-Gálvez received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, where he completed his dissertation on American Indian slavery and its legacy in the Southwest, which garnered a Ford Foundation fellowship. 

“We are delighted to have a historian, preservationist, and leader of Estevan’s stature and experience join our team to guide the future direction of our historic sites,” said David J. Brown, Executive Vice President and Chief Preservation Officer of the National Trust. “Estevan has a strong belief in the power of place and the stories of those places to help us understand and shape today’s world,” said Brown.

The Vice President of Historic Sites provides leadership to staff and volunteer stewards of the National Trust's diverse and nationally significant historic sites. The sites include historic buildings and landscapes, museums and cultural centers, working farms and city townhouses — each dynamic in their own way and collectively representing broad and significant elements of the American experience. The 29 National Trust Historic Sites include one of the nation’s oldest continuously inhabited community at Acoma Pueblo; President James Madison’s home, Montpelier; Lyndhurst, a Gothic Revival-style house in Tarrytown on New York’s Hudson River; Mies van der Rohe’s modernist masterpiece, the Farnsworth House; South Carolina’s Drayton Hall and the Philip Johnson Glass House in Connecticut to name a few.

Dr. Rael-Gálvez will begin his new duties at the National Trust in May.