ACHP Chair Nomination & Vice Chair Designation
President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Sara Bronin as Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) chairman. Read the White House announcement.
Bronin is a Mexican American architect, attorney, and policymaker specializing in historic preservation, property, land use, and climate change. She is a professor at the Cornell College of Architecture, Art, and Planning and an Associated Faculty Member of the Cornell Law School. Bronin’s interdisciplinary research focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places. She has published books and articles on historic preservation law and currently leads the research team behind the groundbreaking Connecticut Zoning Atlas.
Bronin’s nomination would likely come before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and then be considered by the full Senate for confirmation. The first full-time, Senate-confirmed ACHP chairman, Aimee Jorjani, stepped down in February. ACHP Vice Chairman Jordan Tannenbaum is currently acting as chairman and will continue to do so until a new chairman is confirmed.
Earlier this month, President Biden designated Jordan Tannenbaum as the ACHP vice chairman. The President also appointed Tannenbaum to a second term, ending in June 2025. Tannenbaum, of Fairfax, VA, was appointed as a general public ACHP member by President Barack Obama in 2016.
Tannenbaum, a cum laude graduate of Brandeis University and American University’s Washington College of Law, was an ACHP staff member from 1972-82. He currently serves as chief development officer of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. He is responsible for overseeing all of the museum’s fundraising activities and completing its $1 billion comprehensive campaign.
On the ACHP, Tannenbaum has served as chairman of the Federal Agency Programs Committee and was chairman of the ACHP’s Digital Information Task Force. Tannenbaum will carry out the functions of the chairman until a new chairman is sworn in after Senate confirmation. Tannenbaum replaces Rick Gonzalez as vice chairman, who has served in that capacity since being appointed to the position by President Donald Trump in July 2020. Gonzalez will continue to serve as an ACHP expert member. His term expires in 2023.
NATHPO enthusiastically supports Ms. Bronin and Mr. Tannenbaum serving in these roles, and looks forward to working with them in this new day at ACHP!