AIC names Ben Haavik Professional Associate

Ben Haavik, Historic New England’s team leader for property care, was approved for a peer-reviewed Professional Associate membership by the American Institute for Conservation (AIC).

The AIC Membership Committee felt that Ben’s professional experience showed “a commitment to furthering the work of conservation in accordance with AIC’s mission.”

Sharing preservation expertise

Haavik regularly presents in numerous forums at the local, national, and international levels, including the AIC Annual Meeting. His goal is to share information on a number of topics related to maintaining historic structures, how climate change has altered approaches to property care and evaluation, and methods to improve conserving and caring for cultural properties.

Learn more about some of the topics presented at AIC

• Climate Change and Gutters
• Weather Related Events and Historic House Museums; A Ten Year review of Emergency Preparedness and Response at Historic New England
• Turning Philosophy into Practice: Documenting Process Through White Papers
• Revisiting Reality: A Changing Approach to Environmental Control in Historic House Museums at Historic New England

Ben Haavik’s Background

Ben Haavik has more than twenty years of experience in the preservation of house museums and cultural landscapes. He has been responsible for the maintenance and preservation of the thirty-seven historic house museums and landscapes in the Historic New England collection since 2004.

While at Historic New England, he has:

• introduced a system for strategic prioritization of preservation work
• developed a weatherization and energy efficiency framework for the organization
• spearheaded system-wide initiatives for climate change and resiliency, and to better understand the environmental, security, and life safety systems at the sites

He is on the executive committee of COSTEP MA, a group dedicated to statewide cultural resource preparedness, and is currently serving on national task forces looking at trades training and how building codes might affect the preservation of historic house museums.