Donovan D. Rypkema

Donovan Rypkema is president of Heritage Strategies International, a firm which works at the nexus of heritage conservation and economics to provide catalytic information to public and NGO clients. Rypkema has worked with communities in 49 U.S. States and 40 countries. International clients have included the World Bank, the Inter American Development Bank, the Council of Europe, the United Nations Development Program, Europa Nostra, the European Heads of Heritage Forum and others. Rypkema was the lead witness at a hearing of the European Parliament regarding heritage conservation and the economic crisis.

He is the author of numerous articles and publications including Community Initiated Development, Feasibility Analysis of Historic Buildings, and a book The Economics of Historic Preservation: A Community Leader’s Guide that has been translated into Russian and Korean. Rypkema holds a Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation from Columbia University. He is a member of the Team of Specialists in Public Private Partnerships for the UN Economic Commission for Europe, on the Board of Directors of Global Urban Development and serves on the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on the Economics of Conservation. Rypkema teaches a graduate course on the economics of historic preservation at the University of Pennsylvania where he received the 2008 G. Holmes Perkins Award for Distinguished Teaching.