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Three New ACHP Members Receive Oath of Office

WASHINGTON, DC—Three new members of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation received the oath of office for four-year terms from U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters on November 8, 2006.

The new members are Missouri Gov. Matthew Blunt, who represents the nation’s governors on the ACHP, and citizen members Rhonda Bentz and D. Franklin Arey. The ceremony took place at the historic Hotel Monaco during the ACHP’s fall business meeting.

“We look forward to working with the new members and welcome the expertise and talents they will be providing the ACHP,” said John L. Nau, III, ACHP chairman.

Blunt was born in Springfield, Missouri, and attended public schools in Strafford before graduating from Jefferson City High School prior to entering the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in history. He was elected governor November 2, 2004, after serving as Missouri Secretary of State, as a member of the Missouri General Assembly, and as an active duty naval officer. He remains a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserves.

Since 2000, Bentz has directed public affairs programs and served as press spokesperson on public policy and product issues for Visa USA, Inc. Prior to assuming that position, she was vice president of public affairs for APCO Worldwide, where she designed and implemented communications, grassroots, political and legislative strategies for issue campaigns. Bentz also has extensive prior experience in the public affairs, corporate, and political consulting fields based primarily in Washington, DC, and Sacramento, California. She has served as a member of campaign steering committees for U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) and U.S. Representative Tom Feeney (R-FL), as a volunteer for the Bush-Cheney campaign, and in numerous other state and national campaigns.

Arey, currently an administrative law judge for the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission, has served in a number of positions in Arkansas state government. He was named Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s first Chief Legal Counsel in 1996 and later was appointed by the governor to fill an interim vacancy on the state’s second highest court, the Arkansas Court of Appeals. He has also served as Chief Counsel at the state’s largest agency, the Department of Human Services. His work with historic preservation includes serving as a deputy director at the Arkansas Department of Heritage. At that agency, he worked for the State Historic Preservation Officer and helped manage the agency responsible for Section 106 reviews, the Historic Preservation Program. He served a five-year term on the Prairie Grove Battlefield Commission and has been active with his local preservation group, the Conway County Historic Preservation Association.

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