New Board Members Welcomed Baltimore, Md. (November 3, 2021) – The Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC) is pleased to welcome four additional members to its Board of Trustees—William J. Cook, the Honorable Wanda Keyes Heard, David Taft Terry, Ph.D., and Mary Tydings. MCHC President and CEO Mark Letzer said, “The Maryland Center for History and Culture is a leading center of Maryland history education. We are excited to welcome our four newest members to the Board of Trustees who have unique professional expertise and backgrounds that will help us as we conclude a successful capital campaign and embark on a new strategic plan to shape the future of history education and engagement in Maryland and across the United States.” William J. Cook is Special Counsel at Cultural Heritage Partners, PLLC, a historic preservation and cultural heritage law firm. He is a nationally recognize lawyer and academic with a successful track record for using preservation law to help protect National Historic Landmarks, significant landscapes, historic viewsheds, and traditional cultural properties. He teaches preservation law at Columbia University and lectures regularly to national audiences on issues related to property, land use, and historic preservation law. Will is also a board member on the Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, Valleys Planning Council, and Ladew Topiary Gardens. The Honorable Wanda Keyes Heard made history as the first woman to hold the position of Chief Judge when she was elected in 2000 and again in 2016 by the citizens of Baltimore City. Throughout her judicial career, she has handled civil and criminal trials, taught seminars to judges and lawyers, conducted yearly mock trials to expose local youth to careers in law, actively mentored many interns, law clerks, and young lawyers, and served as an active member of the Board of the Library Company of the Baltimore City Bar. Chief Judge Heard retired in December 2019 after practicing law for 37 years, with over 20 years of judicial service on the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. A graduate of the University of Maryland King Carey School of Law (’82) and the University of Maryland Baltimore County (’79), Chief Judge Heard currently resides in West Baltimore. David Taft Terry, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Geography and Coordinator of the Museum Studies & Historical Preservation Program at Morgan State University. A graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, he earned his master’s degree in African-American History from Morgan State University and received his Ph.D. in History from Howard University. He has also served on the board of the Downtown Partnership, Maryland Public Television (MPT), and the Maryland State Arts Council. “Historical understanding can liberate us. Cultural entities—schools, museums, churches, corporations, public parks, documentary producers—have the capacity to remind us who we’ve been, the opportunity to help us visualize all we can be now, and the responsibility to help us teach our children of what they owe (yes, owe!) the world they will inherit,” he says. Mary Tydings is a 30-plus year veteran of the search business and works with major national and international foundations, non-governmental organizations, cultural institutions, and higher educational institutions to recruit presidents and chief executives, and to advise board leadership on issues of governance, succession planning, executive transition and assessment, as well as board development. Tydings joined Russell Reynolds Associates in 1984. In 1992, she took a leave of absence to assist the Clinton-Gore transition, working as a Search Manager. She continued her work in the White House before returning to the firm in 1993. Mary has served as a board member at her alma mater Bowdoin College, Power to Decide, the Joseph E. Davies Foundation, and Lucky Dog Animal Rescue. She currently serves as a Council Member of SOS Sink or Swim. MEDIA CONTACT Jennifer MichaelDirector of Communications & Marketingjmichael@mdhistory.org
