Across the country, an overwhelming backlog of historic properties — in national parks as well as those held by nonprofit and private organizations — are in disrepair. Meanwhile, the preservation field has faced an increasing skills gap, as craftspeople traditionally trained in such trades as woodworking and masonry have retired and fewer people have entered the profession since building technology and manufacturing became heavily automated during World War II.
In Wyoming Katherine (Longfield) ’03 Wonson has developed not just a hands-on but also a “hearts-on” approach to trades training and curriculum through her Old School Heritage Solutions. Wonson works with clients nationwide on historic trades training as well as preservation planning and design services. Her motto is “celebrating and sustaining the wisdom, warmth, and traditions embedded in historic buildings.”
She says, “Our built heritage gives us an understanding of our past and an insight into ourselves as a community, a culture, and even a species.”
Wonson honed her expertise in historic trades over a 15-year career in the National Park Service. But her passion for historic preservation was sparked as a child by the restoration of a one-room 1851 schoolhouse near her home in Morris County, N.J. “I had all these questions that percolated long before I understood that historic preservation could be a profession,” she says.
At Colgate her art history degree trained Wonson to critically study and evaluate works of art and architecture. Equally formative was her role as an instructor in the Outdoor Education Program. “It was eye-opening, experiential learning,” she says. Unsure of her career path, Wonson headed west and fell in love with Jackson, Wyo. “The town had a soul; it had such character,” she says. After an online search for “alternative careers for art history majors” turned up historic preservation, she earned a master’s degree in the field at Columbia University in 2008. “When I realized there were others like me who obsessed over old buildings, I knew it was a calling,” she says.
Nine of Wonson’s 15 years with the National Park Service were as director of the Western Center for Historic Preservation in Grand Teton National Park. A $3 million renovation transformed the 1913 White Grass Dude Ranch into a training facility for traditional trades; Wonson developed its curriculum.
She reached out to Molly (Ames) ’91 Baker, former director of Colgate’s Outdoor Education Program, for help in creating the curriculum that would empower field workers to apply and share their extensive knowledge and connect with the philosophy behind preservation. “When craftspeople are at the same table, not just as someone who swings a hammer but who also understands the decision-making process, they feel seen,” Wonson says. “We end up with better preservation outcomes.”
She left the park service in July 2024 to launch Old School Heritage Solutions, through which she and Baker continue to provide “hearts-on” trades training and curriculum.
Wonson also shares her broader preservation expertise with such clients as the Idaho Heritage Trust, helping prioritize preservation recommendations for historic properties across the state. She’s working with Xanterra Resorts in Death Valley National Park on a museum conservation project.
She’s also consulting on the renovation of Jackson Hole’s first library, not only identifying critical repairs to the 1940 building but also helping the design team rediscover historic features that had disappeared from the structure. “We aim to get building owners from thinking in terms of restrictions to thinking in terms of opportunities,” she says.
As part of her dedication to preserving the historic character that first attracted her to Jackson, Wonson founded the nonprofit Teton Trust for Historic Places. The trust established preservation easements to protect some of the last intact remnants of Jackson’s historic downtown. “We’re now getting calls from other Wyoming communities that want to do the same,” she says.