Benjamen Salata

Director of Heritage Education, The Historic Columbus Foundation

Columbus, Georgia June 2005- September 2008

I started with HCF while I was working on my graduate degree. I needed resources for me to accomplish my MA historic preservation and they were kind enough to allow me into their archives and to familiarize myself with how a true preservation society functions. Besides the aforementioned relationship I put all their collections into a digital format and helped them out with their functions, summer camp, and other programming. In February of 2005 I walked into the Executive Director’s office to inform her that I had been offered a real unique historic preservation opportunity working with National Geographic and the Civil War era submarine Hundley.  It just happens that their Education Director resigned that day and I was convinced to stick around. I enjoyed working with them so much that it was an easy decision to stay onboard. I was there till the second week of September in 2008 when I was informed that my position was being eliminated due to budget cuts. But we covered that on the home page.

Below is a photo of the basement of the Walker-Peters-Langdon House; the oldest house in the city. It was transformed into a basement in France in 1944 for a Discovery networks filming.

Like any small non-for-profit all the employees have so many diverse responsibilities. Here is a solid summarization of mine.

Heritage Education- Developed and conducted educational programs & tours for school-age children – at heritage corner and in the classroom. Developed and conducted educational programs for adults–lunch and lecture series. Distributed “Our Town” educational materials each year.  Administered annual Patti Jackson Howard Scholarship process. Promoted Young Historian clubs at local high schools and coordinated with existing Young Historian clubs for collaborative projects. Organized summer day camps for membership and non-profit children’s organizations. Produced teacher training and certification programs each summer. Procured grants for educational programs.

Heritage Tourism- Promoted all group tours, special tours and school tours with Director of Marketing. Booked all group tours, special tours and school tours. Conducted daily Heritage Corner Tours, school tours and collaborative (multi-institutional) tours. Maintained professional networks with other museums for heritage tours and living history. Coordinated and trained docents for Heritage Corner and school tours.

Heritage Corner & Rankin House Development- Assisted hired consultants to produce programmatic improvements for Heritage Corner & Rankin House.

Multi-Media Development -Developed and maintained HCF website. Produced HCF newsletter. Curated digital imagery of all events and projects. Produced all invitations, flyers and needed print materials. Created and produce the Park News for neighborhood preservation society.