Spotlight on Our Program Manager
Alison
Hernandez, Program Manager of PSP’s Texas Office, has a passion for historical
preservation. She pursued it to the completion of her Master’s Degree from the
University of Georgia: “A Study of German-Texan Cultural Identity through
Sacred Architecture.”
“My Grandmother’s family was part of the 1830s wave of German immigration to Texas,” says Alison. “I was drawn to researching the rural churches of these immigrants once I learned I had ties to them. I argued in my thesis that these sacred sites stand in many cases as the last physical vestiges of this particular cultural identity. They are places of homecoming for those that identify as German-Texan.”
Alison
originally started as an Intern with PSP, helping with the Texas Sacred Places
Project, documenting historic sites. In 2013 she was hired as Program Manager,
and now helps coordinate programs, R&D, and grant writing for the Texas
Region.
A native
of the Dallas-Fort Worth Area, Alison graduated from the University of Texas at
Arlington with a B.S. in Architecture. While at UTA, she collaborated
with BC (Building Communities) Workshop Dallas on the Congo Street Green
Initiative in the East Dallas neighborhood of Jubilee Park, a project that
received the AIA/HUD Secretary’s Award for Excellence in Community-Informed
Design. While studying in Georgia, Alison contributed to the Stratford
Hall Cultural Landscape Laboratory, a collaborative venture of the Robert E.
Lee Memorial Association and the University of Georgia, College of
Environmental Design, whose work is to develop and implement the future
management and interpretation of Stratford Hall’s highly significant cultural
landscape.
Alison is
busy on many fronts. She is preparing grant proposals to bolster our Texas Sacred Places Project website as well as our Rural Program
Development. She is researching the history of Divine Redeemer Presbyterian
Church in San Antonio to help prepare them for a Recorded Texas Historic
Landmark nomination in the fall. And she recently began coordinating an asset
mapping workshop for Fain Presbyterian Church in Wichita Falls.
“I’m
excited about PSP’s future,” she says, “We are on the cusp of expansion within
the Texas Region, and I look forward to bringing Partners’ mission to new areas
throughout the state as we foster new relationships.”