Sriprasert named president of city’s oldest preservation group
Michael Sriprasert has been named president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, the city’s oldest preservation organization.
Mr. Sriprasert, who joined PHLF in 2006, will start his new job Aug. 10. He succeeds Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., who started the organization in 1964 with Barbara Drew Hoffstot and James D. Van Trump. Mr. Ziegler, 83, lives in Avalon. “I am very pleased to announce that Michael Sriprasert, our vicepresident, who also heads two of our subsidiaries — Landmarks Community Capital and Landmarks Development Corporations — will become president of this organization . ... I will then assume a new role as President Emeritus,” Mr. Ziegler said in an email newsletter sent Friday.
In his announcement, Mr.
Ziegler said the organization and members of its boards began discussing new leadership in 2011.
In 2013, six individuals who served on the Landmarks board sued the organization, Mr. Ziegler and two board members over issues of governance and expenditures. When the case settled this month in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, it was placed under seal at the request of attorneys for Mr. Ziegler, board members Mark Bibro and Jack Norris, and PHLF.
Mr. Sriprasert, 46, of Lawrenceville, led preservation and community development initiatives in Wilkinsburg, where PHLF created 67 units of affordable and subsidized housing in restored buildings for people who have low or moderate incomes.
PHLF’s Wilkinsburg initiative entailed cleaning up blighted
vacant lots, planting community gardens, establishing an education center, providing loans to small businesses and nonprofits, awarding grants to historic churches and creating two National Register Historic Districts.
Mr. Sriprasert, the announcement said, “led our efforts in lending, preservation real estate development and advocacy in Downtown Pittsburgh in the historic North Side, Hill District, South Side and Hilltop neighborhoods in the city.”
A native of Maryland, Mr. Sriprasert grew up near Washington, D.C., and came to Pittsburgh in 2002 to pursue a Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs. A graduate of Kenyon College, he earned a master’s degree in public policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from its Tepper
School of Business.
“I have been extremely fortunate to have been immersed in the culture of PHLF over the past 14 years, working as partners with Arthur over the past nine years as president of two of our subsidiaries,” Mr. Sriprasert said in a statement.