Training

Fort Sumter National Monument hosted over 75 participants from more than fifteen National and State parks at the Preserving Coastal Forts: a National Park Service (NPS) Workshop held April 8-10, 2008 in Charleston, South Carolina. Park Superintendents, Cultural Resource and Facility Managers, Architects and Engineers, Masons and Maintenance Mechanics, contractors and partners attended.

NCPTT has been granted a cultural diversity intern for summer 2008 through the NPS Cultural Resources Diversity Internship Program.

NCPTT’s Jason Church participated in a session on cemetery preservation planning and maintenance as part of Saving Places 2008, Colorado Preservation, Inc.’s annual historic preservation conference.

The Department of Veteran Affairs, National Cemetery Administration, has entered into a new interagency agreement with NCPTT to continue the evaluation of commercially available cleaners for use on federally-issued headstones.

Join us for a two-day hands-on workshop in historic American Cemetery to learn the basics of proper cemetery landscape maintenance.

NCPTT is providing consultation to Arlington National Cemetery on maintenance and repair of the “Tomb of the Unknowns.”

A new Perkin Elmer Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) spectrometric microscope was recently installed in the NCPTT research labs.

NCPTT held two TelNPS courses in January. The Essentials in Cemetery Monument Care program aired on Jan. 17 and featured cemetery and commemorative monument maintenance techniques that are sustainable, cyclic, non-invasive and do no harm.

Materials Research Chief Mary Striegel and Materials Conservator Jason Church conduct a TEL NPS course “Essentials in Cemetery Monument Care.”

Kirk Cordell and Andy Ferrell participated in planning for “Preserving Coastal Forts: An NPS Workshop” that is scheduled April 8-10, 2008, in Charleston, South Carolina.

Geophysical techniques like radar, magnetometry, conductivity, and resistivity are fast becoming essential archeological skills.

NCPTT recently provided technical assistance to the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum in Shreveport regarding concerns about the condition of several archeological copper objects associated with the Gahagan burials that were excavated in the 1930s.

Materials Research Chief Mary Striegel and Materials Conservator Jason Church conduct a TEL NPS course “Essentials in Cemetery Monument Care.”

The Presidio Trust and NCPTT have agreed to jointly promote NCPTT’s “Prospection in Depth 2008,” a workshop that focuses on cutting-edge applications of geographic information systems and geophysical technologies for identifying archeological sites and site features.

There are steps you can take to prepare a historic structure for natural disasters. NCPTT’s architecture and engineering program updates information it presented at the recent Historic Natchez Conference.

Approximately 90 people attended a NCPTT-funded webinar on high definition documentation in archeology on Nov. 14 and 15.

APT and NCPTT partnered to present nondestructive evaluation methods for historic structures. The workshop provided guidance for professionals and students in the use of diagnostic nondestructive testing for historic structures. It was
intended for technically oriented graduate and practicing engineers, architects, preservation consultants, and contractors who are not familiar with this subject area.

Development of a Rapid Indicator of Biodeterioration of Historic Stone. Ralph Mitchell, principal investigator, and Christopher J. McNamara, of Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences worked to identify microbial species for possible use as a microbiological indicator for identification of stone deterioration.

NCPTT will hold two TelNPS courses in January. The Essentials in Cemetery Monument Care program will air on Jan. 17 from 1 to 3 EST.

NCPTT held the Southeast Cemetery Monument Conservation Workshop at St. Michaels Cemetery, Pensacola, Florida on October 23-25, 2007.