Laura Stewart Holder is the TCWNHA's Heritage Area Manager. She administers the activities, programs, and staff of the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area, including preparation of reports, budgets, and work plans.  Completing her M.A. in Public History at MTSU, Holder has worked for four years in human resource management.  While at MTSU she served as a graduate research assistant at the Center for Historic Preservation, completing several National Register nominations and planning Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area meetings and events.

Michael Thomas Gavin is the Preservation Specialist for the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area, administered by the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University.  He has also served as an adjunct professor in the History Department at MTSU.  Gavin received a B.A. degree in English from Rutgers University and a M.A. degree in History from MTSU.  For twenty-five years, he was president of a restoration company that specialized in rehabilitating historic buildings.  Gavin’s current research areas include African-American history, the charcoal iron industry, and vernacular architecture, particularly log buildings.  Recent publications include “From Bands of Iron to Promise Land: The African-American Contribution to Middle Tennessee’s Antebellum Iron Industry,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 64 (2005), “Building with Wood, Brick, and Stone: Vernacular Architecture in Tennessee, 1770-1900,” in A History of Tennessee Arts: Creating Traditions, Expanding Horizons (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004), “Log Cabin Folklore:  Chinking and Daubing Tales,” in Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin 60 (2002), and “German American Log Houses of Lawrence County, Tennessee,” Material Culture 33 (2001).

Antoinette G. van Zelm, the TCWNHA’s Historian, provides research, writing, and editing assistance to partnering organizations. Van Zelm received her Ph.D. in American History from the College of William & Mary in 1998, completing her dissertation on the transition from slavery to freedom among women in Virginia during and after the Civil War.  Van Zelm serves on the Executive Council of the Southern Association for Women Historians (SAWH) and as book review editor for H-SAWH.  Her publications on the Civil War and Reconstruction era include “A Soldier of the Cross in Norfolk, 1865-1876: Chloe Tyler Whittle and Evangelical Womanhood” in Virginia Cavalcade (2000) and “Virginia Women as Public Citizens:  Emancipation Day Celebrations and Lost Cause Commemorations, 1863-1890” in Negotiating Boundaries of Southern Womanhood:  Dealing with the Powers That Be (2000). She also published “A Hunger for Theatricals: Two Hundred Years of the Stage in Tennessee” in A History of Tennessee Arts: Creating Traditions, Expanding Horizons (2004).

Melissa Zimmerman is the TCWNHA's Heritage Programming Specialist.  She provides research and design assistance for heritage education and museum/interpretive center projects.  Zimmerman holds a M.A. in art history with a concentration in museum studies from Virginia Commonwealth University.  She served as Director of Education at the Valentine Richmond History Center for nearly five years and most recently worked as Curator of Education at Agecroft Hall Museum and Gardens.

In addition to these staff members, the TCWNHA is supported by the permanent staff of the Center for Historic Preservation.

Dr. Carroll Van West, Director, Center for Historic Preservation
                             Director, TCWNHA

Caneta Skelley Hankins, Assistant Director

Dr. Stacey Graham, Research Professor

Elizabeth Moore, Fieldwork Coordinator

Anne-Leslie Owens, Public Services Coordinator

Nancy W. Smotherman, Executive Aide