“We embrace our history”: Incoming chair charts vision for the future

JT Hand, the new chairman of the History Center’s Board of Directors, offered these remarks during the annual meeting in September.

I know that the applause is not for me, and that it is intended to recognize and thank Dr. Dennis Baughman for his service to this, our York County History Center. Ladies and gentlemen, before I begin, I would ask for a round of applause for Denny Baughman, our outgoing chair. 

Unlike Denny, I didn’t have the opportunity to stroll through York in my youth. I’m not from York, but rather, New York. I was born and bred in New York. and following 22 years of active duty in the United States Army, I found York, Pennsylvania. My family and I have been blessed to live in York for the past 18 years, but I will admit, if you had asked me 20 years ago where York was, I couldn’t have guessed. Having moved often, my wife and I were looking for a community in which to set roots, to raise our family, to work and to play. We found York in 2006 and are grateful for all this community has offered us over nearly 20 years. I do still feel like a newcomer, but not an outsider. What I’ve found in York is all of you here tonight, all of this that surrounds us, a history, a community, an opportunity to grow and to thrive. I would like to thank many of you in this room for the honor, the privilege, to succeed Dr. Dennis Baughman in this role.   

I want to start with Denny Baughman, who has shepherded us through the past two years with equal measures of intelligence, understanding, determination, and pride. Denny: Our board, our staff, and our community have been blessed by your enduring commitment to not just this building, but, more importantly, to the foundation of our History Center, which is our ethos, our culture, our responsibility to the past and vision for our future. I thank you for asking me for coffee, for bringing me into the fold, and teaching me and showing me how best to pick up the gauntlet and advance our mission. 

As did Denny, I, too, wish to thank Joan Mummert. While she has never once asked for it, I feel an obligation of pride and purpose to recognize Joan Mummert, her vision, her perseverance, her tenacity, and her leadership. I think when Denny suggested to Joan that I might be added to the executive team, she may have had to catch her breath a bit. You know how Joan sometimes rolls her eyes… can’t you see it?). But Joan taught me, through her example, how important we are to this community. She taught me why I had this amazing opportunity to serve on this board, and to be part of the most amazing future. 

I want to recognize Terri Altland, Vice President of Visitor Engagement, who bridged the gap between Joan and Ben. We get nervous, it’s natural, when someone like Joan steps away. In this case, we had no reason to be nervous. With Terri, we never missed a step or skipped a beat. I want to thank Lorissa and Dan, and Amy and Nicloe, and Adam and Doug: Our amazing staff who go above and beyond their duties to ensure our History Center is vibrant, thriving relevant, respected, tended, and fun. 

To my fellow board members with whom I’ve served, and some of whom have run their race and will step back (but never away) from board duties, thank you. 

Dennis Baughman
Diane Baker
Shawn Stine
Delma Rivera-Lytle
Rebecca Countess
Kenya, John, Glenn, Fran, Albert, Silas, Neicy, Sam, Sarah, Lisa, Tom, Jeff, Adam, Ron, Steve, Montez, Aaron, Mike, Mark, Johathan, Tim, Jane, Jan and Cal. 

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow members of the York County History Center, these are the names of the amazing men and women with whom I’ve served on the board of directors and who have prosecuted their duties fully and faithfully.   

I am truly energized to be here tonight, among all of you. Energized and also moderately apprehensive. 

As a former military officer, I understand what it means to maneuver on a battlefield, to align forces, to secure logistics, to establish communications, to understand my left and right limits, who’s in front, who’s behind. In the military I’m also familiar with a very difficult maneuver known as a Forward Passage of Lines, which occurs when one friendly force passes through and in front of another friendly force to advance the mission, relieve a unit, or establish a new limit of engagement. A forward passage of lines can be dangerous and difficult. If done well, it’s seamless, with no loss of contact or slippage.

But, if done badly or incompletely, you may create gaps, exposures in your forces, paths of potential failure. I use that miliary context to share with you that we are in a forward passage of lines right now at the York County History Center, a passage between Denny and me, Joan and Ben. It could be dangerous, if we have not done the necessary planning, haven’t arrayed our forces, considered our logistics. If we don’t know who has our left, our right, and our rear flanks. It could create chaos, if we don’t have the right tools, the necessary resources, or if our timing is off.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to assure you, that we are well prepared, well positioned, and well-resourced for this leadership passage of lines. One of the reasons I’m so confident in that statement is that as I look at all of you, and as I know very well our community, and our staff, we’ve packed our gear, we’ve set the conditions, we know you have our back, and we are confident in our mission. 

As we start this next chapter of our journey together, we have our guiding principles, our culture, our mission, to guide us: to understand the past and to illuminate the future, through inclusive, authentic storytelling, and preservation. 

As we approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, our citizens deserve and I believe demand that this History Center will tell our entire story, truthfully, with all of our achievements and our challenges. And so, as a board:

We commit, as we prosecute our most important governance, fiduciary, and operational responsibilities, to be true and be truthful. True to our ideals. True to our purpose. True to those who came before us and those who will stand here generations from now. And to be truthful with each other, with our history, with our exhibits, with our promises and obligations. 

We commit to serve with honor and be honorable. Honor and grace mean knowing when you’re wrong, and when wrongs must be admitted, apologized for, remedied. To serve with grace, the grace to forgive, knowing that history is no more perfect than you or I. And to be honorable, to accept responsibility for what goes wrong, and not just accolades when things go right. 

In our History Center, we will strive to invite, not deter. We invite all, for conversation, for collaboration, imagination, debate, and yes, for celebration of both common and individual achievements.

And we embrace, not dismiss. We embrace our entire history, the good and the bad, the long past and recent, the history we make today. We don’t dismiss inconvenient truths, we don’t look past the blemishes, the scars, the imperfections. We embrace that we are human and fallible, and that collectively, we, all of us, those generations that came before and will certainly come behind, we have created this most amazing tapestry, whose individual threads criss and cross, tighten and sag, fade and shine. And through this History Center and all of these amazing artifacts, we tell our story, we invite curiosity, we celebrate our past, and we imagine our future. Thank you for allowing me to add the smallest of a snippet of a strand to our tapestry. 

We have much to do and we are so very fortunate to have recently hired a truly remarkable and passionate leader, advocate, historian, colleague and servant.  The entire board and I are excited to have Mr. Benjamin Neely leading our team, setting our azimuth, sharing our journey. Ben, welcome to your first, of what we know will be many annual meetings of our York County History Center.

JT Hand is president and chief executive officer of The York Water Company.