Our Board of Directors is supplemented by an Advisory Council who provide advice to the Board and senior staff on policy and operations relating to leading trends in Heritage education and the best practices and new methods in the Heritage field.
Ashley Wilson, AIA, ASID, FIFA
Ashley is the Graham Gund Architect for the Historic Sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She provides broad oversight over the conservation and preservation of the architecture and landscapes of the Trust’s twenty-seven historic sites. She works to ensure the timely, practical, and appropriate delivery of services for those structures and their surroundings.
Ashley was a founding and tenured professor at the Clemson University/College of Charleston Graduate Program for Historic Preservation in Charleston, SC and previous to her academic career, she was in private preservation practice in Washington DC (Oehrlein & Associates Architects) and in Virginia (Kapp & Robbins Architects) and worked for 5 years as Assistant Architect for Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village between her degrees at the University of Virginia Architecture School, and the University of Notre Dame Graduate Architecture School.
Ashley was the 2015 Chair of the Historic Resources Committee of the AIA, she serves on the Rubenstein Initiative Advisory Board at Montpelier, the Preservation Easement Committee at the National Trust, and the Senate Curatorial Board of the United States Senate.
Chris Wiebe
Chris is Manager, Heritage Policy and Government Relations at the National Trust for Canada, which he joined in 2006. He organizes the National Trust’s annual conference, coordinates the National Roundtable on Heritage Education, and works on such issues as the economics of heritage and sustainable preservation.
Chris has been an instructor in the Cultural Resource Management Program at the University of Victoria since 2012 and a member of the Central Experimental Farm Advisory Council for almost a decade. He sat on the Board of Directors at the Willowbank School for Restoration Arts from 2009 to 2015. He holds Master of Arts degrees from Carleton University (Canadian Studies – Heritage Conservation) and the University of Alberta (English) and has written widely on heritage conservation and cultural issues for such magazines as Canadian Geographic and Alberta View.
Clinton Brown, FAIA
Clinton is a graduate of Franklin & Marshall College, the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, and the University of Virginia School of Architecture. He founded Clinton Brown Company Architecture, a leading historic preservation and grants services firm. Clinton is a founding member of the Board of the Richardson Center Corporation that is rehabilitating the former State Asylum Complex in Buffalo and a Commissioner of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Commission, having been appointed by three Secretaries of the Interior. Clinton was involved in creating the New York State Historic Tax Credit program.
His firm has surveyed more than 18,000 potential heritage resources and nominated more than 8,000 for heritage designation, including the Elmwood Historic District in Buffalo, one of the largest historic districts in the US, where more than 5,000 property owners can access historic tax credits. He has been honoured as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. A Niagara River Region native, he is active in civic, public policy, heritage, economic and equity initiatives. He is the Board’s liaison to the Advisory Council.
David O’Hara, OALA, RPP
David is a Landscape Architect and Registered Professional Planner. He worked for over twelve years as a park planner with the City of Toronto before his appointment to Fort York National Historic Site in 2005. David worked on the Public Space Framework Plan and the Central Waterfront Secondary Plan, both documents informing the development of Toronto’s Central Waterfront today. David was the project lead for the development of the Harbourfront parks and open space system, which included coordinating the international design competition for the HTO Park at Maple Leaf Quay.
David is currently coordinating the development of the full 43-acre site, his work includes several landscape restoration/rehabilitation projects, the recent completion of a new 26, 000 s.f. Visitor Centre, the $20 million Fort York Pedestrian/Bicycle bridge, and a major portion of the recently announced ‘Project: Under Gardiner’ which stretches across the south frontage of Fort York.
Michael McClelland, OAA, FRAIC, CAHP
A registered architect and founding partner of ERA Architects, Michael McClelland specializes in heritage conservation, heritage planning, and urban design. Having begun his career in municipal government, most notably for the Toronto Historical Board, Michael continues to work with a wide range of public and private stakeholders.
Well known for his contribution to the discourse surrounding heritage architecture and landscape architecture in Canada, Michael is an editor of Concrete Toronto and The Ward: The Life and Loss of Toronto’s First Immigrant Neighbourhood, is the Vice President of ICOMOS Canada, and a member of the Stewardship Council of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (CLF).
Robin Garrett
Robin is an experienced leader in the not-forprofit and government sectors including: management roles at two of Canada’s leading food industry associations (Food & Consumer Products of Canada and Restaurants Canada); Assistant Deputy Minister for the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade; President & CEO of Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership; and, CEO of the Tourism Partnership of Niagara.
Robin has been an active Board member serving as Chair of Food Banks Canada, Vice Chair of the Niagara District Airport, Chair of Bravo Niagara Festival of the Arts, and a Board member of the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario. In her consulting business, she represented Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation in the Niagara region during the 2015 land use planning review. Robin is currently a professor at Niagara College and teaches Marketing, Strategic Management & Leadership, Sustainable Tourism Destination Development, and Canadian Niche Tourism in the postgraduate Tourism Management program.
Victoria Angel
Victoria is an Associate and a Senior Heritage Planner at ERA Architects Inc., where she works on the development of heritage conservation strategies and management plans for historic places and urban areas. An art historian with a graduate degree in heritage conservation, Victoria combines extensive conservation experience in the private, public and academic sectors.
While at Parks Canada, she managed the development of the Canadian Register of Historic Places and subsequently served as the Manager of the Federal Heritage Buildings Review Office. She has taught heritage conservation at the University of Victoria and at Carleton University, where she is an Adjunct Professor, and is a Faculty Associate at the Willowbank School of Restoration Arts. Victoria has expertise in the areas of values-based management planning, urban revitalization, and heritage policy development and implementation. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 2015.
Tamara Anson-Cartwright
Tamara is a Program Manager in Urban Design/Heritage Preservation Services at the City of Toronto Planning Division. Tamara manages the policy and research team focused on undertaking heritage evaluation of properties, Heritage Conservation Districts and cultural heritage landscapes for inclusion on the City’s Heritage Register, and delivery of heritage incentive programs.
She is currently leading the City’s feasibility study for a Citywide Heritage Survey. Prior to joining City Planning in 2015, Tamara was a Heritage Advisor in the Ontario Government for more than 25 years developing provincial policies and programs for the conservation of heritage properties. Tamara with the Neumeyer family and friends established the Per Neumeyer Bursary in 2010 to annually support a second year Willowbank student.
Ashleigh Bell
Ashleigh Bell graduated with the Willowbank class of 2013 and currently holds a position with the Tourism & Culture division of the City of Hamilton, coordinating capital projects on municipally-owned cultural facilities, museums and historic sites.
She is involved with a number of community and professional organizations, including the Hamilton Community Land Trust and the Hamilton-Burlington Society of Architects, for which she has coordinated two educational series on conservation discourse. Ashleigh attended OCAD and has a background in Interior Design. She currently teaches two courses in the Willowbank diploma program, Architecture in Canada & Architectural Styles and Historic Interiors.
Amy Swift
Philip White
Phil White began carving wood and sculpting at a very early age. He was greatly inspired by
his grandfather, a master stonemason, and by frequent family trips to British Columbia,
where exposed to the sculpture of Native artists of the Northwest Coast. Phil began selling
his work at age 17 in galleries in Peterborough area, then later in Toronto, and participated in
several group shows between 1982 to 1986.
He studied Art Conservation Techniques program at Sir Sandford Fleming College from
1985-88. The program included extensive training in art and artifact conservation practice
and theory, art history, materials technology, and chemistry, as well as museum
administration and exhibit planning. He then went on to work for the Canadian Museum of
Civilization and the Canadian War Museum as a conservator and exhibit artist from 1988-
2006.
Phil applied to a national competition for the position of Dominion Sculptor in 2005 and
was appointed to the position in 2006. This position was created in 1936 to oversee, as well
as create, all of the internal and external stone and wood carving and sculpture on the
recently built Center Block on Parliament Hill. The duties of the position have since been
expanded and now functions essentially as Canada's official Parliamentary sculptor.
Phil’s Sculptures and decorative arts are represented in numerous private and public
collections and locations including: Canadian Parliament Buildings; House of Commons
Heritage Collection; Senate of Canada Collection; Collection of HRH Queen Elizabeth II;
Canadian Museum of Civilization; Canadian War Museum; Canadian Heraldic Authority;
Canadian Nurses Association; Canadian Bar Association; National Capital Commission;
Rideau Hall; Fleming College; Royal Canadian Legion.