This piece was originally published in our January-March 2023 edition of SF Heritage News. To view the full issue, click here.
Welcome to New Board Members!
SF Heritage welcomed four new members to the Board of Directors in 2022 with the addition of Tia Lombardi, Brad Paul, Sharaya Souza, and Connor Ishiguro Turnbull. Beloved board members Courtney Damkroger, Jim Buckley, and Tara Sullivan termed off in December, bringing the total to 16 members for 2023. We are honored to have these new members join SF Heritage, and grateful for the dedication and support that our departing members have brought to the organization. Get to know more about the new board members in their short biographies below:
Tia Lombardi oversaw public affairs, communications, media relations, and programming for the Presidio of San Francisco, writing the Presidio’s first strategic plan and co-authoring the Presidio management plan, which won ULI’s Global Award for Excellence. She held leadership roles in award- winning adaptive-reuse projects, including the 40-acre Public Health Service Hospital District; the western crescent of Crissy Field; and the 100-acre Main Post. Tia was a college scholar in literature and history at Cornell University, and she undertook graduate studies in American literature and history at Stanford University. “What a propitious time to join San Francisco Heritage, and what a honor. As San Francisco navigates its challenges, our city’s dynamic history is more relevant than ever.“
Brad Paul is Deputy Executive Director for Local Government Services with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and has over 40 years of experience in preservation, planning, community development, housing policy and philanthropy. Over the years, Brad has worked at the Western Regional Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in San Francisco, served as San Francisco’s Deputy Mayor for Housing under Mayor Art Agnos and was a Senior Program Officer with the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr., Fund for eight years. Brad attended Williams College and was the recipient of a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 1988. “Having been active in preservation in the past, I became more complacent recently believing preservation was now baked into the city’s planning process. The current threat to the Castro Theater was a wake-up call, reactivating my commitment to Heritage’s mission.”
Sharaya Souza (Taos Pueblo, Ute, Kiowa) is the Executive Director and co-founder of the American Indian Cultural District (AICD), She is an ambassador for promoting equitable resource distribution to American Indian communities, increasing Native visibility and political representation, and protecting and preserving tribal cultural resources in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sharaya’s previous experience includes the American Indian Cultural Center, Twitter, California Native American Heritage Commission, the California Research Bureau, Office of Institutional Research, California Department of Water Resources, and working with Governor Brown’s Tribal Advisor. “I joined SF Heritage to help elevate and expand San Francisco’s unique historical cultural identity as well as preserve tangible and intangible cultural resources throughout the city.”
Connor Ishiguro Turnbull is the owner of Connor Turnbull, Preservation Consulting, an independent preservation practice founded in 2019. She has worked in preservation since 1995, and has also served on multiple municipal boards including the Canada Ireland Foundation, Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, North York Community Preservation Panel, and the City of Toronto Heritage Survey Technical Expert Panel, among others. In San Francisco, she previously worked as an architectural historian for Carey & Co., Inc. She holds a degree in History from Brown University, and a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. “It is an honor to join SF Heritage in its indefatigable championing of San Francisco’s unique architectural and cultural identity and it is a thrilling time to consider both the past and the future of this complex and nuanced city.”
