Get to know the MPA Board
Zachary Peterson
I am currently the Donor Relations Coordinator at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and have a combined 10 years of experience in donor relations, higher education academic services and undergraduate English instruction. I live with my partner in a late 1930’s cottage style home in Menomonee Falls built by his great grandparents. We are constantly in the middle of our next project, making sure the home is here for the next generation.
I was born and raised in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Growing up in this small tight knit city in west-central Wisconsin, I witnessed the active preservation occurring throughout downtown and the neighborhoods above the valley the downtown sits in, led by the transformative leadership of the Chippewa Falls Main Street Director, Terri Ouimette. Beautifully restored commercial and residential buildings dot the community, a site to see anytime of the year, I myself favor Fall.
My love for history and for historic preservation was fostered by my parents, Paul and Melissa Peterson, who let me construct a family and local history in the basement of our condo as a child, my grandmother Dona Peterson, who took me to children’s programs starting at a very young age at the Chippewa Valley Museum in Eau Claire, WI and encouraged my love for collecting antiques that I wanted so bad to tell me their stories wrapped within them and my middle school history teacher, Angie Southworth, who always encouraged me to never give up on my passion and love for historic preservation.
At a young age I became enamored with the shuttered buildings on the site of the former Northern Wisconsin Home for the Feeble Minded and Epileptic. It led to many projects in my studies as a history and museum studies undergraduate student at Ripon College and was the focus of my Master’s thesis at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
Even though I have lead a winding path, first getting Bachelor's Degree in History and Minor in Anthropology (Museum Studies Concentration), my Master’s Degree in English (Writing- Rhetoric and Composition Concentration) and then pivoting from a career as instructor and academic to non profit fundraising, my love for historic preservation has remained steadfast. As an undergraduate I interned at the Boston Preservation Alliance and opened my eyes even further to how important historic preservation advocacy is. With my continual love for historic preservation and growing love for non-profit fundraising, I hope to help the Milwaukee Preservation Alliance grow even stronger as an organization.
I was born and raised in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Growing up in this small tight knit city in west-central Wisconsin, I witnessed the active preservation occurring throughout downtown and the neighborhoods above the valley the downtown sits in, led by the transformative leadership of the Chippewa Falls Main Street Director, Terri Ouimette. Beautifully restored commercial and residential buildings dot the community, a site to see anytime of the year, I myself favor Fall.
My love for history and for historic preservation was fostered by my parents, Paul and Melissa Peterson, who let me construct a family and local history in the basement of our condo as a child, my grandmother Dona Peterson, who took me to children’s programs starting at a very young age at the Chippewa Valley Museum in Eau Claire, WI and encouraged my love for collecting antiques that I wanted so bad to tell me their stories wrapped within them and my middle school history teacher, Angie Southworth, who always encouraged me to never give up on my passion and love for historic preservation.
At a young age I became enamored with the shuttered buildings on the site of the former Northern Wisconsin Home for the Feeble Minded and Epileptic. It led to many projects in my studies as a history and museum studies undergraduate student at Ripon College and was the focus of my Master’s thesis at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
Even though I have lead a winding path, first getting Bachelor's Degree in History and Minor in Anthropology (Museum Studies Concentration), my Master’s Degree in English (Writing- Rhetoric and Composition Concentration) and then pivoting from a career as instructor and academic to non profit fundraising, my love for historic preservation has remained steadfast. As an undergraduate I interned at the Boston Preservation Alliance and opened my eyes even further to how important historic preservation advocacy is. With my continual love for historic preservation and growing love for non-profit fundraising, I hope to help the Milwaukee Preservation Alliance grow even stronger as an organization.
1. What three words best define you?
Caring, passionate, pensive
2. What is your guiding principle?
“Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our
hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.” -Sara Ahmed
3. What is your favorite book?
We Hope for Better Things by Erin Bartels
4. What’s one thing people would be surprised to know about you?
I have played the violin for over fifteen years.
5. What is your favorite free time activity?
Antiquing, Family History Research, Visiting Historic Sites/Museums, Reading, and Writing
6. What is one of your favorite places in Milwaukee? Outside of Milwaukee?
In Milwaukee: Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce Building and Downtown Books
Outside of Milwaukee: Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Sweden
7. If you could become another person for one day, who would it be?
Sara Ahmed - Author, Academic
8. What inspires you and why?
The built environment and the objects that intermingle in and among them and the stories that they tell
9. What do you see as the future of historic preservation?
Working more consistently and collaboratively as a community to build up stewardship and awareness around built heritage in underrepresented communities around the world, including the United States with people of color; people with disabilities; people from a lower socioeconomic status; people from the LGBTQA+ community and people of nondominant religions.
10. Why should people support MPA?
Supporting MPA gives voice to the stories that are embedded within the culturally and historically important built environments in Milwaukee.
Caring, passionate, pensive
2. What is your guiding principle?
“Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our
hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.” -Sara Ahmed
3. What is your favorite book?
We Hope for Better Things by Erin Bartels
4. What’s one thing people would be surprised to know about you?
I have played the violin for over fifteen years.
5. What is your favorite free time activity?
Antiquing, Family History Research, Visiting Historic Sites/Museums, Reading, and Writing
6. What is one of your favorite places in Milwaukee? Outside of Milwaukee?
In Milwaukee: Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce Building and Downtown Books
Outside of Milwaukee: Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Sweden
7. If you could become another person for one day, who would it be?
Sara Ahmed - Author, Academic
8. What inspires you and why?
The built environment and the objects that intermingle in and among them and the stories that they tell
9. What do you see as the future of historic preservation?
Working more consistently and collaboratively as a community to build up stewardship and awareness around built heritage in underrepresented communities around the world, including the United States with people of color; people with disabilities; people from a lower socioeconomic status; people from the LGBTQA+ community and people of nondominant religions.
10. Why should people support MPA?
Supporting MPA gives voice to the stories that are embedded within the culturally and historically important built environments in Milwaukee.
