Preserving the Craft, Preserving History

The future of Historic Preservation Training at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

By Matt Dursum | April 19, 2025

In addition to turquoise waters, old-growth forests, and awe-inspiring views, you’ll find several historic buildings within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. When these buildings—some over 175 years old—need repairs, participants and craft workers from the National Park Service’s Traditional Trades Advancement Program, or TTAP, step in.

TTAP is more than just a team of artisans who repair weathered buildings within the National Parks. It’s also a way for young people and military veterans to learn valuable trades while giving back to their community.

The National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Training Center (HPTC) runs TTAP from its offices in Frederick, Maryland. “It’s a pre-apprenticeship style opportunity where individuals are working alongside National Park Service staff who are expert craftsmen in their particular trade,” says HPTC Program Specialist and TTAP Program manager Claire Finn.

TTAP provides veterans and young adults with opportunities to learn trade skills that contribute to preserving and restoring historical monuments within the National Park System. Program participants and the craftworkers they apprentice under support national park sites with preventative maintenance, historic preservation, and project backlogs to ensure visitors get the most out of their visit.

“Last, and certainly not least, we’re preparing all our participants to enter the workforce after they leave TTAP to become the next generation of maintenance workers across the public and private sectors,” says Finn.

Ten Years Later

TTAP started with just a handful of members in 2016 at the Historic Preservation Training Center in Maryland.

“In the years since, we’ve grown to engage over 300 young adults and veterans across 91 National Park Service sites in every region of the country, from Alaska to Florida, Maine to Hawaii,” says Finn. The program now works with close to folks in traditional trades and apprenticeship-style positions each year. “There are amazing historic structures and trades to be learned in every corner of our country.”

To join the program, people between the ages of 18 to 30 and veterans between 18 and 35 with a DD214 and an honorable or general under honorable conditions discharge status can apply. Participants must pass a background check and not be listed in the National Sex Offender Registry. Once accepted, TTAP participants work up to 40 hours per week, with a base pay of around $18 an hour.

In their roles, the participants work side by side with experts in the field, skilled craft workers, masons, and carpenters in historic building preservation with decades of experience. The Park Service also works with volunteers through the Volunteers-in-Parks or VIP program.

How It Works

National Park Service craftworkers travel between sites across the country, specializing in multiple historical building styles.

“They’re often decades into their careers and often learned their skills from their predecessors, who themselves have been doing masonry and carpentry for 40 years on historic buildings in the National Park Service,” says Finn.

By spending decades traveling between sites, NPS craftworkers know the ins and outs of historic sites across the U.S. “It makes you have a richer knowledge set as a craftsman if you’ve, say, worked in multiple states, so you really understand the tradition of the particular trade, not only in one site or one region but nationally,” Finn adds.

TTAP participants learn how to construct, maintain, and repair historic buildings according to each site’s history and purpose. They learn skills such as repairing historic window sashes and capstones, stabilizing historic barn foundations, removing old mortar and pointed walls, treating and waxing bronze monuments, and restoring historic viewsheds.

“As these expert craftsmen are retiring out of the workforce and existing historic buildings are getting older, having this knowledge passed on to the next generation is increasingly important,” Finn tells us.

The Local Touch

At Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, participants work on historic wooden barns, farmhouses, and granaries.

“In the four years I’ve been here, we’ve had two TTAP interns every summer season since I started about four years ago,” says Cory Plamondon, buildings and utilities supervisor. Plamondon now supervises the TTAP crew at Sleeping Bear.

The crew participates for 26 weeks in an intensive and immersive setting. Within that time, they will attend OSHA and other safety training the National Park Service offers. “They’ll then end up working on historic structures, mostly; working on repair and paint projects at the Tweddle farmhouse, the Bufka farmhouse, and the Kropp farmhouse,” says Plamondon. The crew is also scheduled to work on the siding of the Georg Schmidt Granary and the Goffar barn’s board replacement this year.

Thanks to the hands-on training it provides, Plamondon says the program gives the participants a solid advantage. “I would say in construction trades, in general, it takes at least three years to have a really solid grasp on it. So with the internship, because it’s based on education, it puts them a lot further ahead,” he explains.

What about the Hiring Freeze?

When asked about the federal hiring freeze that has threatened the jobs of up to 83 seasonal employees at Sleeping Bear, Training Administrator and Y.E.S. Team Manager Robyn Podany feels optimistic. “I think because of the dynamic of this program, it’s a need, and it’s very unique. I think because of these things, we’re in a very good place.”

TTAP receives its funding from a mixture of public and private entities, such as the National Park Foundation. According to Podany, the program is poised to keep growing, even when other NPS programs are waiting in limbo on federal government support. “Our program is continuing to grow, the interest is there, and the need is definitely there,” she says.

For TTAP’s participants, learning the skills to repair 150-year-old masonry or renovate a historic barn keeps them in a growing niche for employment. “Trades work remains one of the very few places that AI and other technologies can’t replace human hands and the mind’s connection to create and to build,” says Podany.

According to Podany, the secrets to the TTAP program’s success lie with its skilled craft workers and the enthusiastic participants who learn from them.

“We’re really thrilled in this particular program to see the enthusiasm of so many young adults who really want to do hands-on, meaningful work. It’s an opportunity for us to continue honing those skills and sharing this knowledge while we still have these master craftsmen available to us.”

Pictured: The Tweddle Barn, by Samantha Demangate