Cemeteries, like historic buildings and landscapes, provide critical connections between our past and future. This Giving Tuesday, please consider supporting our Cemetery Preservation Workshop series so we have the capacity to educate more future preservationists, history lovers, and communities across the state and preserve the stories of our past.

Cemeteries, like historic buildings and landscapes, provide critical connections between our past and future. Cemeteries literally contain the physical remnants – human remains – of our past. Cemeteries are evocative and powerful places that speak to descendants and casual visitors equally. Not only do cemeteries memorialize our loved ones who have passed away, they also hold invaluable social, artistic, cultural, and architectural heritage. Cemetery preservation is not only caring for the material history such as grave markers, monuments, and cemetery structures, it brings the community together to honor those who have passed away and the families connected to cemetery sites.

 Analysis shows the need for a larger and better-trained historic trades workforce; 100,000 workers needed within the next decade

BALTIMORE (November 15, 2022) – Preservation Maryland and its national program, The Campaign for Historic Trades, today announced the completion of a first-of-its-kind labor study on the status of historic trades in America. The study is believed to be the most comprehensive survey ever prepared on the status of the traditional trades in the United States. While ample data exists for the construction industry as a whole, specific and consistent labor market statistics have not previously existed for the historic trades.

The Campaign for Historic Trades is a national workforce development program powered by the statewide non-profit Preservation Maryland in partnership with the National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Training Center. As part of its mission to identify and resolve systemic barriers to historic trades careers, The Campaign sought to define historic trades occupations and ascertain the current and future market need for trained tradespeople. With this new study, conducted by PlaceEconomics – a firm with decades of experience in the analysis of the economic impact of preservation – and the data it provides, the gap between the need for historic preservation trades workers and the trained hands to perform the work is estimated and forecasted for the first time in history.

Key Findings

The portion of the construction industry that is focused on historic rehabilitation is large and growing. Heritage trades make up an estimated 12.6% of all building rehabilitation jobs. Both the number of buildings considered historic and the amount of money invested in their rehabilitation are on upward curves. But there is a serious shortage of workers who are trained and experienced in the historic preservation trades.

• Nearly 2 million commercial buildings, 35 million residential buildings, and over 2 million multi-family buildings—that is, almost 39 million of 96.1 million structures in total—in the United States were built at least 50 years ago.
• Each year, approximately 261,000 of these properties have rehabilitation projects that require experience heritage trades workers—that is nearly 100,000 highly specialized trades workers needed over the next decade.
• In 2021 alone the total investment in historic buildings is estimated to be nearly $37 billion, and that historic rehabilitation activity is expected to create close to 166,000 direct jobs annually.

The rehabilitation of historic buildings is a labor-intensive activity, meaning a high share of the total expenditure goes to labor. These projects create more localized jobs compared to new construction activities.

• For every 10 direct jobs created by rehabilitating a historic building, another 1.8 to 2.4 additional jobs are created elsewhere in the economy.
• On average, for every $100 in direct labor income an additional $186 is generated in paychecks for indirect and induced jobs.
• Additionally, $11.3 billion direct labor income is created by historic rehabilitation activity.

To access the full labor study, visit www.historictrades.org/laborstudy

Join us on Thursday, October 27, 2022 as we attend the Symposium: Solving the Workforce Development Puzzle, hosted by the Maryland Center for Construction Education and Innovation (MCCEI) and the University of Maryland’s Project Management Center for Excellence. 

The MCCEI has a helpful and interactive website, where people can explore career and training opportunities in the state of Maryland. MCCEI also administers a scholarship program to individuals currently enrolled or planning to enroll in built environment-related coursework for the upcoming school year. This year, they also piloted the MCCEI Internship Program to connect students with paid internship opportunities, providing placement services with employers and structured mentorship components for the interns.  

MCCEI guides the future of the industry by providing education and promoting innovation, working with stakeholders to find solutions—such as this Symposium. The construction industry has been struggling to meet workforce demands for over a decade, and since the pandemic, it has only gotten worse. At the Symposium, experts in the field will discuss how they attract and retain talent, and participants will engage in networking and roundtable discussions. 

To sign up, visit: Symposium: Solving the Workforce Development Puzzle Tickets, Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 8:00 AM | Eventbrite 

The Campaign for Historic Trades and Preservation Maryland visited Fort McHenry National Monument & Historic Shrine to speak to the National Park Service‘s Historic Preservation Training Center Traditional Trades Advancement Program (TTAP) trainees. The Campaign for Historic Trades works to recruit trainees and place them in national parks across the country, growing opportunities for the next generation of historic preservationists.

The Campaign visits the National Association of Women in Construction summer camp for young women

The Campaign for Historic Trades and partner National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Training Center staff spent a day teaching historic trades skills to young women at the National Association of Women in Construction ‘s Camp NAWIC Baltimore, a free, week-long day camp for 7th to 12th grade girls to introduce them to a potential career in the construction industry.

The Harrison Goodall Grant for Innovative Historic Preservation gives graduate students and enterprising professionals the opportunity to undertake a focused pursuit that makes a meaningful contribution to the field of historic preservation and support the stewardship of historic resources nationwide and at any level (e.g., federal agencies, state and county parks, non-profit history museums, etc.). The grant is a short-term opportunity to pursue a unique self-directed project under the guidance of a mentor. Recipients will receive recognition for a distinguished achievement while creating original preservation training content, performing research, or enhancing leadership and management skills.

In brief, the grant is meant to encourage and help accomplish something exceptional and innovative.

Preservation Maryland and our program, The Campaign for Historic Trades, are hosting cemetery preservation workshops across the state, where participants learn the basic preservation techniques of caring for a cemetery. The first workshop will take place this Saturday, April 30th in Frederick at Mount Olivet Cemetery. The workshop will be led by Jon Appell of Atlas Preservation and Moss Rudley of the Historic Preservation Training Center.