Donna Ann Harris has been a consultant to the Tacony Community Development Corporation in Northeast Philadelphia since we began our commercial corridor work in 2009. In that time, she has helped our organization grow far beyond our expectations.
Most recently when our longstanding Executive Director left for a new position, she helped us organize a search for his replacement. Over four months, Donna helped guide our Search Committee of Trustees as they updated the job description, identified a salary range, and sorted through 65 resumes to find six highly qualified candidates for first interviews. Donna worked collaboratively with the committee to select questions for our first interviews, and further written questions of our candidates. She helped us hone our reference check questions. Upon Donna's advice, we asked our top three candidates to make brief presentations to the full TCDC board, about their vision of the future of our corridor Torresdale Avenue. We ended our search process with one lead candidate. Donna advised me on the negotiations on salary, benefits and start date with our top candidate, who took the job in Spring 2022.
We have turned to Donna several times in the past to help us plan for our future through two five-year Strategic Plans. Each of our two previous Strategic Plans have been highly ambitious, and we have managed to implement more than 95% of the tasks we have set for ourselves. We are about to begin a third Strategic Plan and have asked for Donna's help again, to propel our far more mature organization into more complex projects.
Donna has been our trusted advisor for more than a decade, and we highly recommend her to our colleagues in the downtown revitalization field.
Heritage Consulting Inc. responded immediately to our request for guidance in reorganizing our regional historic preservation group to prepare for its acquisition of a historic property in Morristown, NJ and related assets. Donna Ann Harris facilitated in-person and Zoom meetings with the board of trustees in which we considered our vision for the organization’s future and developed strategic planning objectives and milestones on the basis of anticipated resources. Donna provided advice on governance, and proposed revisions to our by-laws that were adopted unanimously by the trustees. Donna is a skilled, efficient communicator; as she listened to us at our first meeting, the depth of her experience and its relevance to our needs quickly became apparent. As a result, we can look forward with confidence to accomplishing a transition that we were not prepared to undertake on our own.
Haddon Heights, New Jersey, has had a historic preservation ordinance since 1975. So, for almost 50 years, this Borough has believed that preserving our history and community character is essential. The Haddon Heights Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) with its dedicated members over these many years, has worked hard to designate the eight individual landmarks and the Historic Districts along parts of First Avenue, Fourth Avenue, East and West Atlantic Avenues, the White Horse Pike, and along Station Avenue in our downtown. However, the HPC never had a Design Guidelines book for the structures in our Historic Districts.
For four months in 2021, Donna Ann Harris worked with the Haddon Heights HPC to create Design Guidelines for the Historic Districts in our town. As a long-standing Certified Local Government (CLG), we wanted to have, as required, a design guidelines book written specifically for Haddon Heights. We were able to secure grant funding from the NJ Historic Preservation Office to create this Guideline and Ms. Harris submitted the winning proposal in January 2021 to write and design it. During this period, Ms. Harris has proved knowledgeable, focused and easy to work with, and she worked in a very timely and efficient manner. It was a true cooperative effort.
This Design Guidelines is a tool for property owners, to help them manage change and protect Haddon Heights' architectural and historical resources. The Guideline book presents preservation treatments and activities that our HPC does, and does not, recommend throughout its 160 pages using more than 225 contemporary and historic photos, text, and drawings to educate and explain these treatments and activities.
We are just delighted to finally have this handsome document to help us further preservation activities in our Borough. Donna Ann Harris did a marvelous job in creating our Haddon Heights Design Guideline Book. This project won the 2022 Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia Preservation Education Award and the Preservation New Jersey Historic Preservation Commission Award in 2022.