FORUM 2024 - Equity Primer

Sarah Cody is the Historic Preservation Chief for Miami-Dade County, Florida. With a background in cultural landscapes, she takes a broad approach to better understand and interpret the County’s unique history. Sarah believes strongly in her duty as a public servant to undertake work that is meaningful to the residents of Miami-Dade. She fosters community-led preservation and believes that the power of our historic and cultural spaces can be leveraged to create more resilient and equitable communities. Recent work has focused on community engagement, equity and inclusion, and climate resiliency. Sarah also serves on the Board of Directors for NAPC.

Erin Morton Pugh, MSHP, is a Senior Preservation Planner for the City of Raleigh, NC. She brings 10 years of experience in areas such as adaptive reuse design, historic tax credits, restoration contracting, and nonprofit outreach. She believes in the ability of historic place identity to stitch communities together, empower residents, and foster equitable development. In her current role, Erin’s focus includes community engagement, design review, increasing access to city process and historic resource information, and helping manage research projects for historically excluded communities. Erin holds dual degrees from NC State University and a Masters degree in Historic Preservation from Clemson University/College of Charleston.

Sarah Steen, MSHP, is the landmarks coordinator for King County, Washington, managing local designation, design review processes and preservation policy implementation with an emphasis on social equity and inclusion. As an architectural historian with a professional interest in vernacular structures and cultural landscapes, she has over 10 years of experience in above-ground fieldwork and preservation planning for the National Park Service and various State Park systems along the west coast. Prior to her work for King County, she served for five years as the preservation coordinator for Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve on Whidbey Island, managing a joint town/county HP regulatory process and developing community-based projects and programs aimed at expanding awareness of the unique issues involved in protecting and interpreting complex cultural landscapes. Sarah holds an undergraduate degree in U.S. History and a Masters in Historic Preservation from the University of Oregon. She currently sits on the boards of Historic Whidbey and 4Culture and serves on the Mountains to Sound National Heritage Area Advisory Committee.

Alex Westhoff, AICP, is a San Francisco-based planner with fifteen+ years public sector experience. Professional focuses have included climate resiliency, historic preservation, current and long range planning, and public involvement. Since 2019 he has served as a Senior Preservation Planner for San Francisco's Southeast Quadrant reviewing development proposals for both new and historic properties. His work has included bolstering outreach protocols to San Francisco's eight Cultural Districts. From 2014-2019, Alex helped to spearhead Marin County's award winning sea level rise adaptation program, including co-authoring two Vulnerability Assessments, an Adaptation Plan, co-creating the Game of Floods, and coastal hazard mitigation planning. Holding a joint Master of City Planning/Master of Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley, his Master’s Thesis proposed the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta as California’s first National Heritage Area leading to enabling congressional legislation. Prior to working for Marin, he spent seven years with the Delta Protection Commission, focused on establishment of the Heritage Area in addition to environmental planning. Racial and social equity has been a key focus and Alex has had experience working on projects with Native American, Asian-American, and LGBTQ associations.