Historic Germantown in Northwest Philadelphia has announced a new Executive Director. Tuomi Joshua Forrest will join the organization in Mid-August. Forrest most recently served as the Vice President of Partners for Sacred Spaces, a national non-sectarian organization that helps integrate faith communities into their surrounding neighborhoods to promote mutual sustainability. Partners for Sacred Spaces maintains an office in Philadelphia as well as in Chicago and Fort Worth. Forrest has also held positions with the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.
With Historic Germantown, Forrest will be responsible for the historic houses, museums, historical society, battlefields, cemeteries, and arboretums that span the Germantown neighborhood. The sites include Colonial and Early American sites like the “Germantown White House,” George Washington’s country retreat when the federal government was based in Philadelphia from 1790-1800, Rittenhousetown, the site of the nation’s first paper mill, to more recent attractions like the immaculately restored Ebenezer Maxwell House, dating to the latter half of the nineteenth century. Forrest has expressed enthusiasm about creating new collaborations between the historic sites and the modern community of Germantown.