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Jessica is a graduate of New Mexico State University in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Art History, She has continually been involved in the museum and art communities.  During her professional career, she worked as a as a registrar and exhibition assistant at New Mexico State University’s Art Gallery and the Branigan Cultural Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico, as a Collections Automation Consultant for a leading art collections management software company, and later handling and preparing one-of-a-kind painting, prints and etchings of such artist like Picasso, Chagall and Rembrandt for restoration, exhibit and purchase at a gallery in Beverly Hills, CA. Then in 1999, Jessica Maria found new opportunities for professional growth at Heritage Square Museum in Los Angeles.  Twelve years later as Executive Director, she has become a well-respected museum and community leader.  For her, working at Heritage Square brings two of her favorite subjects, history and architecture, together in a common purpose: to use architecture and object based learning to educate the public of local and national history.

 

Jane is a graduate of Connecticut College with a major in History of Art, and received a MA from a program in American History and Historical Museum Work in a program sponsored jointly by the University of Connecticut and Old Sturbridge Village. She worked in various collections management capacities at the Maine State Museum in Augusta from 1971 to 1988, and as a consultant there between 1999 and 2006. Jane is currently Adjunct Curator at the Maine State Museum. Since 1988, she and Ron Kley have worked, in a partnership called Museum Research Associates, with various clients on collections records management and computerization projects. In addition to other work, they have worked part time for the last 5 years inventorying the documentary collections of the Vaughan Homestead Foundation in Hallowell, Maine. Along with coauthor Linda Carter Lefko, Jane has recently published Folk Art Murals of the Rufus Porter School: New England Landscapes 1825-1845 (spring 2011, Schiffer Books). Jane has been a member of ALHFAM since 1982 and has attended every annual conference for the past 30 years. She has also served ALHFAM as an early New England Regional Representative and fulfilled a term on the Board during the 1990s.

 

Hal is currently the Interpretive Planner for the Texas Historical Commission Historic Sites Division overseeing the interpretation of 20 state historic sites including historic houses and military forts.  He is the former Executive Director of the Heritage Farmstead Museum in Plano, Texas where he oversaw the museum operations including reaccreditation by the American Association of Museums.  He served as Curator of Dallas Heritage Village from 1995 until the July 2007 and oversaw the exhibits and interpretation of a 13-acre historic site with 35 relocated and restored buildings in a village setting spanning the period of 1840 to 1910 and was in charge of the reinterpretation of the site as a living history venue, with first person programs and the creation of its heritage livestock program.  He has a B. A. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Texas, and specializes in 19th century material culture. Hal is an active member of the Texas Association of Museums and the Association of Living History, Farm and Agriculture Museums, where he is a past-chairman of the Historic Clothing and Textiles Professional Interest Group.  Hal served as a founding member of the City of Carrollton’s Historic Preservation Advisory Board, and on the Board of the A. W. Perry Homestead Museum in Carrollton, Texas for six years. He is a past-president of the Peter’s Colony Historical Society of North Texas.  Hal is a sixth generation Texan and lives in Austin with his partner of 18 years and an aged miniature pinscher who pretends she’s a real-life Doberman. He participates in civilian American Civil War reenactment and researches Medieval and Renaissance clothing and lifeways. In his spare time Hal reads a lot of Anne Rice novels and ghost stories, researches his family history, and searches for the best Italian food he can find.