Recorded Webinar: Historic House Call: Risk Assessment in Historic Houses

Historic House Call: Risk Assessment in Historic Houses is an AASLH Continuing Education recorded webinar. This webinar is about  unique issues in historic house preservation needs, especially in terms of disaster preparedness. This event is presented by Samantha Forsko and is part of the Historic House Call webinar series, presented in partnership with the AASLH Historic House Affinity Group Committee. Historic houses present unique issues in their preservation needs, especially in terms of disaster preparedness. This webinar explores those needs through a discussion of hazards, risk assessments and evaluations, and mitigation methods – all with a focus on historic houses.

Samantha Forsko is the Preservation Specialist at the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA), where she primarily works with institutions and their collections. She conducts on-site preservation needs and risk assessments and assists with preservation and emergency planning. She also develops and presents educational programs and provides technical information to libraries, archives, museums, historic sites, and other cultural institutions.  Since starting at the Center in 2015, Samantha has also been the project manager of the Pennsylvania Cultural Resilience Network (PaCRN), aiming to improve emergency response and preparedness for cultural institutions across the state. Before joining CCAHA, Samantha worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as a collections manager. In addition to providing long-term care for the nearly 200,000 permanent collection objects owned by LACMA, she also served on the Emergency Preparedness Committee, responsible for writing, updating, and training the 300 member staff on the implementation of the institution’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan. She has previously worked as a conservation technician for the Regional Arts and Culture Council and Cascadia Art Conservation Center, both in Portland, Oregon, primarily providing preventive maintenance and care for outdoor public art collections. Samantha received her MA in Arts Management with a focus on Archival and Museum Studies from Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, California, writing her master’s thesis on Emergency Preparedness in Cultural Institutions.