What is a historic preservation?
For Constance Ramirez, it is a simple answer.
"Helping people to find and save their history," she said.
For 40 years this is what Ramirez did on the Landmark Review Board for with Arlington Heritage Alliance (AHA).
She was recently awarded the AHA’s 2009 Heritage Award.
"Because Connie was moving out of Arlington, we wanted to acknowledge her long commitment to preservation," History Matters president Kathryn Smith said.
No where is this more evident than in her fight to save the Marcey Cabin.
Back in 1982 when Ramirez worked for the Landmark Review Board, she was given a list of sites to investigate. Then, she got a call that the Marcey Cabin near Donaldson Run in Arlington — one property on the site list — was going to be demolished.

AFTER VISITING the site, Ramirez contacted the county to see if the building could be moved to one of its parks. She was unsuccessful until Ramirez had a conversation with Vienna attorney Charles Sloan, who has worked on a number of preservation projects around Virginia.
"I knew Connie worked with the Arlington Heritage group … and we were talking one day about something else when she asked me if I’d like a log cabin in my backyard," Sloan said.
He did like the idea and two years later they were reconstructing Marcey Cabin on his property in historic Vienna.
Ramirez feels that the project demonstrates "what historic preservation should be about."
"Now Arlington’s Marcey Cabin is now sitting in Vienna, Virginia," she said.
Her dedication to preserving historic sites is also evident in her work with Sharon Park at the National Park Services in the restoration of Ft. Myers during the mid-1990s. The National Park Service helped to restore the one-story military building designed by Montgomery Meigs by removing the extra paint to bring out the beauty of the building’s natural wood.
"Connie is someone who has always been teaching and sharing her knowledge with the next generation of preservation practitioners. I was a guest speaker at one of her classes at the UVA extension program on Historic Preservation," Park said.
Currently, Ramirez is teaching courses in historic preservation at University of Maryland and George Washington University. She tells her students and anyone interested in a career in historic preservation that there are lots of opportunities within the field in recent times.

RAMIREZ’S PASSION for historic preservation goes back to her hometown Annapolis, Maryland.
"I grew up in downtown Annapolis. I was just struck by how much the variety of the city enhanced my life. And I looked around and thought it’s really neat how you have some old buildings and modern buildings in there … I think it was that kind of environment that led me to think about how you can help other cities have this kind of mixture." Ramirez said.
After spending some time helping city planners at the nonprofit organization Historic Annapolis, Ramirez became interested in city planning and urban history.
Upon finishing up her undergraduate at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, she went on to receive a Masters in City Planning from Yale University and a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from Cornell University.
However, she recognizes the challenges facing historic preservation in recent years.
"The challenge in Arlington as I saw it is to make people understand that we can preserve history places and have new development. We can integrate a lot of what people want … good housing, various retail services or good schools. We can have all that and house them in places that have historic value. Schools for instance, people want good school and say we have to modernize them. But there are ways to protect the older part of the school or the front of the school …. but then also upgrade it and put in the new facilities. I think our neighborhoods are richer if they maintain places from the past that we enjoy." Ramirez said.
She also stated that we have to allow space for new ideas and development which is very complex to get a balance that works in terms of economics and social goals.
Arlington became an urban area in really the past 60 years. According to Ramirez, many individuals may not view dairy farms and argricultural land as separate from the city’s history. However, Ramirez views it as apart of the city’s agricultural history.
Currently, Ramirez hopes to work on expanding the National Park Service Web site HistoricPreservation.gov. She wants to provide educators with more supplemental information on historic preservation.
She is also working on obtaining more historical information on an area called Edgewater in Annapolis. Since 1969, she has lived in Arlington, but she moved back to her hometown recently. Ramirez is married with children.
In addition, she has also worked with the preservation offices for the Department of Army and the U.S. General Services Administration.