Executive Director
Timothy Sutphin
Tim became the Executive Director of the Germanna Foundation in December 2018.
Previously Tim worked at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for 27 years, starting as an instructor for the Fifes and Drums and finishing up his career at Colonial Williamsburg as Director of Revolutionary City programs and Annual Events. He has managed multimillion-dollar budgets, worked closely with local officials, carried out long-range planning, developed exciting new programs, and handled media relations, among other duties. Tim was responsible at one time or another for the Fifes and Drums, Military Programs, Evening Programs, the Revolutionary City, Reenactor Events, Grand Illumination and July 4th, along with a host of other special events. As his wife said, “if it made noise, went bang or was outside, it was his responsibility.”
While he was the Director of the Revolutionary City, Tim directed a staff of over 400 in creating an immersive Revolutionary-era experience for more than 600,000 visitors per year. He fostered successful collaboration with multiple departments to design, develop, and implement all living history programming on the streets of Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area, to produce a unified vision of the eighteenth-century city.
When he was the Director of Historic Events, Tim developed and directed eight special initiatives for the Historic Area, including special evening programs and visits by high-level dignitaries. He designed, developed, and executed multi-day events consisting of 500+ volunteers for audiences of 30,000+, including a variety of entertainment, city services and internal staff (Colonial Williamsburg Grand Illumination, July 4th events, Williamsburg Storytelling Festival, and several Historical Re-enactor Weekends). He also served as the official public spokesman to the media.
Tim holds a degree in history from East Tennessee State University.
Archaeologist
Eric Larsen, Ph.D.
Dr. Larsen has more than 25 years of archaeological experience, having worked with the National Park Service at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, and for the University of Maryland on sites in Annapolis, Maryland. He directed fieldwork at the Freedmen’s and Contraband Cemetery for the City of Alexandria, Virginia, and most recently assisted with excavations at George Washington’s Boyhood Home at Ferry Farm (near Fredericksburg, Virginia) for the George Washington Foundation. He has taught introductory Archaeology classes and trained numerous students through a variety of Field Schools primarily in the Mid-Atlantic States.
Membership Development Manager
Ashley Abruzzo
Ashley joined the Foundation team in February 2017 as its new Membership Development Manager. Within this role, Ashley focuses on fundraising and membership relations, community outreach, and event planning. She connects up Germanna supporters with one another and deepens the relationships across our 300-year-old community. She looks forward to going out into the community and sharing the history of Germanna and making personal connections with everyone.
Ashley grew up in Rockford, Illinois and received her B.A. in History from the University of Illinois at Springfield and her M.A. in Applied History from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. She is a Germanna descendant as her 7th great-grandfather was Jacob Crigler and founded Criglersville in Madison County. He was one of many to arrive with that second wave of colonists in 1717.
She comes to the Germanna Foundation after two years as the Tourism & Marketing Manager for The Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership, a nonprofit organization that brings awareness of history, education, conservation and preservation to a 180-mile swath of land ranging from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to Charlottesville, Virginia.
In that job, she handled itineraries for domestic and international visitors, marketing and merchandising, and she lead the Certified Tourism Ambassador training that allows people from throughout the Journey Through Hallowed Ground to become more knowledgeable about the region they work in. She interacted with people in the tourism industry ranging from small local businesses to historic sites, hotels, visitor centers, and more.
Before that she worked as a museum educator at Morven Park in Leesburg, VA
Ashley is very excited to be working for the Germanna Foundation and bringing more awareness to the historical and cultural significance of what the Foundation stands for. She says that Germanna is not only an important piece of Virginia’s early history, but the entire country’s as well.
She invites everyone who goes by the Germanna Foundation Visitor Center to stop in sometime and say hi!
Director of Advancement
Michael Phillips
Michael Phillips has been named the Director of Advancement for the Germanna Foundation. Michael brings over 12 years of diverse experience across museum, nonprofit, government, and corporate worlds. His museum work includes curating exhibitions, planning symposia and festivals, tours, lectures, and fundraising as well as consulting on collections and individual works of art.
Throughout his career, Michael has utilized programs, public relations, and media to enhance fundraising efforts and raise the profile for nonprofits and museums. He served as a Guest Curator for Preservation Virginia (APVA) and increased visitation and interest in the 1790 John Marshall House. He incorporated media, publications, special events, tours, admissions, and a lecture series to raise funds and awareness for the historic houses and for Preservation Virginia.
Michael has experience planning and leading teams on projects that advance an organization’s mission. He founded and assembled a board and team to conduct the first Virginia Festival of the Antique at the Virginia Historical Society.
He is a skilled writer, editor, and public speaker and has served in a variety of communications and publications roles. Recently, he managed communications related to historic content for NPR/PBS in Virginia. He has also held communications and public relations leadership positions in the government and non-profit spheres.
Michael received a B.A from the University of Virginia where he studied history and archaeology and has an extensive background in early American architecture and material culture.
Michael has given a number of lectures, talks, and tours for the benefit of organizations including the Battersea Foundation, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), Wilton House Museum, William & Mary, and the Decorative Arts Trust.
He has served in leadership positions and on a variety of boards dealing with historic preservation including Historic Richmond. He also serves on the Board of the Richmond Antiquarian Society and as President of the Board of the Archaeological Institute of America-Richmond Chapter.
He is a published author and lecturer on early American furniture and curated the first exhibition on early Richmond furniture and decorative arts entitled Classical Richmond Furniture: Early American History & Craftsmanship in Virginia’s Capital in partnership with Preservation Virginia. He has been a contributor to The Magazine Antiques.
Michael has planned our inaugural Evening with Germanna event, engaged in outreach and research collaboration with scholars and architecture historians, and conducted new research on our sites, including Salubria and the Enchanted Castle site. He developed the inaugural Friends of Germanna group.
Office Manager
Barbara Bounds
Barbara Bounds joined the foundation in September 2011 after eight years of teaching foreign language in the Culpeper and Spotsylvania public schools. Prior to that she worked for twenty years as an administrative assistant, an accounting clerk, and in electronics purchasing.
From Pittsburgh, PA, she is married to a Spotsylvania native, Gary, who works for the Virginia Department of Transportation. Together they have six children and three grandchildren. They live at Lake of the Woods and enjoy its community activities.
She enjoys the foundation and looks forward to Germanna’s exciting future. Her co-workers add that Barbara’s good cheer, hospitable nature, excellent organizational and planning skills, and her marvelous baking, make her wonderful to work with!
Volunteer Coordinator
John Howard
John Howard, our volunteer coordinator, was born in Seattle and lived in Bremerton, Washington until 1966.
He spent three years in the Army and then worked for the Navy in ship design until retirement 38 years later. His career took him to Washington DC in 1966, where he lived in Arlington and met his wife Ann. They have two married children and three grandchildren.
John retired in 1993. In 1998 they followed two Falls Church neighbors to Lake of the Woods. John came out of retirement to work first for the Orange County Visitor Center at Germanna in 2004 and then subsequently stayed with the Germanna Foundation when Orange County transferred its visitor operations.
A valuable resource for our visitors, John keeps the library organized and helps others research their family history.
When he is not working at the Center, he keeps busy stamp and beer can collecting.
Volunteers
Visitor Center Docents:
Russ Williams
Liz Arndt
Wilderness Battlefield Grounds Force (Siegen Forest hiking trails maintenance):
Bob Johnson
Paul Alderman
Dorse Counts
Wade Aylor
Ken Froehnert
Gary Mauss
Hank Sisbarro
Tony Studer
Myron Wasiuta
Terry Wasiuta
Kurt Utz
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