Advisory Council

Museum of the White Mountains Honor Roll

This Honor Roll celebrates these supporters for their extraordinary contributions to the Museum of the White Mountains. The Museum was conceived of and established in 2011 under the visionary leadership of Sara Jayne Steen, President of Plymouth State University, 2006-2016.

Woolsey S. Conover, inaugural Chair and member of the MWM Advisory Council, 2011-2020

David Govatski, member of the MWM Advisory Council, 2011-2023

Current Advisors

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Adam Jared Apt

Adam Apt, a native of Belmont, Massachusetts, lives in Cambridge, Mass., where he is the proprietor of Peabody River Asset Management, LLC, a registered investment advisor. He holds a BA in astronomy from Amherst College, a doctorate in the history of science from the University of Oxford, and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Apart from a couple of hikes when he was at summer camp, his serious hiking in the White Mountains began in 1991, and he has solo-hiked the New England Hundred Highest and the Adirondack Forty-Sixers. In winter, however, he has hiked only about a quarter of the 4000-footers of the White Mountains (not all solo). His White Mountain collection consists primarily of books and other works on paper, including manuscripts and photographs, and especially maps, about which he has published a few articles. His White Mountain stereoviews, including some on glass, number about 1500. He has contributed text to the whitemountainhistory.org Web site, and in 2006, he was guest curator of an exhibition of White Mountain Maps at the Harvard Map Collection.

He is past president of the Boston Economic Club, treasurer of the Boston Committee on Foreign Relations, past treasurer of the History of Science Society, and past secretary of the Boston Map Society.

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Douglas E. Evelyn

Douglas Evelyn is an independent museum planning and management consultant following a 36-year career at the Smithsonian where he served respectively at the National Portrait Gallery (1969-79), the National Museum of American History (1979-92), and the National Museum of the American Indian until his retirement from the Smithsonian in late 2005. He was deputy director of all three museums, in charge of day to day operations, support of the director, and liaison with relevant Smithsonian boards and offices. He served on many Smithsonian task forces and helped negotiate the agreement with the U.S. Postal Service establishing the National Postal Museum. His particular interest has been the development of new institutions and transformation of longstanding organizations to meet new challenges.

Evelyn began his museum career at the American Association of Museums (now American Alliance of Museums, AAM) in 1963 and has served on the boards of the AAM (Treasurer), the American Association of State and Local History (President), and the US Committee of the International Council of Museums. He’s been an accreditation peer reviewer for the AAM for three decades. He was board chairman of the New York State Historical Association/Fenimore Art Museum from 2009-2015 and now serves on its board and the boards of the George Washington University Museum/Textile Museum (co-chair) and Canterbury Shaker Village.

He served on the board of the Ammonoosuc Conservation Trust for 9 years and has performed its work in connection with its role as a consulting party to the Section 106 historical impact process for the Eversource Northern Pass Transmission Project.  In this capacity he worked with many North Country towns and historical organizations to research and identify historical landscapes and properties. Among his clients since 2007 have been the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), The George Washington University, the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, and Hartman-Cox Architects, Washington, DC. For George Washington University (2010-2013), he advised on its affiliation with the Textile Museum, including facilities needs and architecture (museum building and collections/conservation center), and transition planning toward opening the new facilities and operating as an academic museum.

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Carol Flate Gerken

Carol is a principal of Wingate Enterprises Consulting in Meredith, NH with her husband, Richard, a former corporation lawyer. Her primary focus is working with nonprofit organizations.  She has served as Executive Director of Interlakes Community Caregivers Inc. and before that as the Director of the Inter – Lakes Senior Center, Meredith.Carol worked for the Du Page Children’s Museum in Wheaton and Naperville, Illinois, where her responsibilities included management of the Museum store; facilitator and trainer in customer services for staff and volunteers; and as special events planner and fundraiser.

A graduate of Plymouth State University, she has experience as an elementary school teacher in Connecticut, an elected Trustee of the Glen Ellyn, IL Library, and an active volunteer and community advocate. She has served as PTA Presidents, and on various community boards.In 2001, she was named as a founding member of the President’s Council at Plymouth State University where she served 5 terms, active on the Executive and Campaign Steering Committees, and as the President’s Council liaison to the PSU Alumni Board of Directors. As members of the Town of Meredith, NH, Community Center Search Committee, she and her husband, were active in a private fundraising campaign a unique initiative that combined both municipal and private funding that effectively brought the Meredith Community Center to fruition in 2006.

In 2007-2009, she co-chaired the Page Pond and Forest Campaign Committee. This committee coordinated private fundraising along with securing state and municipal funding and grants to successfully conserve more than 600+ acres of forested land in Meredith. In 2018, they conserved an additional 200 acres. A graduate of Leadership Lakes Region, and she is active in the Lakes Region community as a member of ALTRUSA International of Meredith, the Meredith Pathways Committee, Hawkins Brook Nature Trail project, Community Garden Club of Meredith, Meredith’s 250^th Committee and the Greater Meredith Program Promotion Committee. Appointed to the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation Lakes Region Board in 2013 and elected to a second 3-year term and serve as a Lector at Trinity Episcopal Church.Carol was honored by the Rotary Club of Meredith with their first “Service Above Self” community service award in 2009. In 2018, the Wicwas Lake Grange #292, named her “Citizen of the Year.”

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Carol LaFontaine

Carol LaFontaine has transformed her love of art and enrichment programs for children into a passion to bring both to the communities in which she resides. She developed cultural enrichment programs in cooperation with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and other area museums that were accessible by public transportation for elementary school children that was recognized by the Massachusetts Cultural Alliance.  She grew up in Belmont, Ma and raised three children while establishing a successful interior design business.

She was active in the Belmont community as a Town Meeting Member, chair of the Mount Auburn Hospital Ball for several years and volunteered for six years in the cancer ward at Boston Children’s Hospital.

After moving to Newfound Lake she was a member of the Newfound Audubon Committee, co-chaired the Fairy House Event in Hebron and has served on the board of the New Hampshire Music festival and the Plymouth Friends of the Arts. In the winter she is a docent at The Baker Museum, Naples, Florida.  Both Carol and her husband Roger are enthusiastic supporters of Camp Mayhew and the Circle Program.

Carol has traveled and explored seven continents and is always learning and bringing this new found knowledge to others.  The LaFontaine’s currently sponsor two children from Kenya at Camp Onaway, Camp Pasquaney and the Holderness School.  She also loves spending time with her family and two grandsons.

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P. Andrews McLane

Andy McLane and his wife, Linda, live in Weston MA and have a vacation home in Bridgewater NH on Newfound Lake. He works with TA Associates, a Boston based private equity firm managing $16 billion in capital. Andy joined TA Associates in 1979, became a Managing Director in 1982 and Senior Managing Director in 1997, and served on TA’s Executive Committee for 20 years. He became a Senior Advisor of the firm in 2008. Andy is Chairman of the Board of Tempur-Pedic International. Prior to joining TA Andy was a Vice President at the State Street Bank and served two years with the U.S. Peace Corps in Chad, Central Africa.

He holds an AB degree from Dartmouth College (1969) and an MBA degree from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth (1973). Andy serves on the Boards of the Cambridge Boat Club, the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), St. Paul’s School and the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team Foundation, and is a member of the Investment Committees of the Appalachian Mountain Club, Dartmouth College and Phillips Exeter Academy. He was born in Littleton NH.

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Lise Greer Moran

Lise Greer Moran has climbed all of the 4000 foot peaks of the White Mountains, has started an historic hotel postcard collection and library, and is the current president of the Whitefield Historical Society, having been a member since 2005. She has been heavily involved in Historic Preservation since 2009, and completed Plymouth State’s Historic Preservation Master of Arts certificate program in 2014. She has served as Chair of the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York Museum Home’s Educational Projects Committee, and has been a fundraiser for Fort Ticonderoga. Lise has worked on several historic preservation projects including The House of the Seven Gables and The Kent House in Lancaster, NH. She currently serves as a Board Member on the New York Landmarks Conservancy, and is a committee member for the Van Cortlandt House Museum in Bronx, NY.

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Rebecca Weeks Sherrill More, Advisory Council Chair

Rebecca Weeks Sherrill More, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar, Dept. of History, Brown University. She directed the Harriet W. Sheridan Center, Brown’s professional development center in pedagogy for faculty and graduate students until her retirement in 2010. She continues to teach part-time at Brown. She and her husband, Tim, are also part-time residents of Lancaster NH on a family farm established by her grandfather Sinclair Weeks.

She continues active research on the social, economic and cultural history of Early Modern England and Colonial America. Her lectures include colonial settlement in New Hampshire and the 1911 Weeks Act, which her great-grandfather Congressman John Wingate Weeks sponsored to further development of the Federal National Forest Reserves.

She currently serves on the board of the Weeks Medical Center, on the Outreach committee for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, as Trustee of NH Historical Society, and on the Fine Arts committee of the RISD Museum.

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Wayne Thornbrough

After spending his career in Investment Management in Boston and New York before retiring in 2004, Wayne Thornbrough spent a decade serving the Appalachian Mountain Club as Treasurer and then Chair of the Board for his final three years. He stepped down in 2016, but continues as Chair of the Nominating Committee and Co-Chair of the Board of Advisors. On the personal side, he and his wife Barbara split the year between New Hampshire in Waterville Valley and Florida in Delray Beach. They remain active as hikers and walkers and Wayne has added a serious commitment to Photography in retirement.