As Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites enters the new year, the nonprofit will see a change in leadership.
The nonprofit announced Monday that VP/Managing Director LoriAnn Wukitsch will become president and CEO, replacing Charlene Donchez Mowers.
Donchez Mowers will become senior advisor to HBMS as of March 1. The shift in leadership will allow Mowers to focus on Historic Moravian Bethlehem being designated a World Heritage Site. There are only 1,154 in the world with 24 in the United States. Mowers currently serves as president of the Bethlehem World Heritage Commission of the City of Bethlehem.
Donchez Mowers spearheaded the campaign to have Historic Moravian Bethlehem designated a World Heritage Site in 2003. This journey is now in the last stage before a final determination by the international World Heritage Committee. In her new role, she will travel to Herrnhut, Germany; Gracehill, Northern Ireland/UK; and Christiansfeld, Denmark to meet with her counterparts in the Moravian Church Settlements Transnational Working Group, which is preparing the nomination dossier for submission to the World Heritage Committee.
A Bethlehem native, Donchez Mowers was appointed executive director of the Moravian Museum of Bethlehem in 1994. The Moravian Museum joined Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites in 1999 and in 2000, she was named the organization’s president.
During her tenure, Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites expanded significantly. Donchez Mowers directed the restoration of the 1758 Nain-Schober House, the addition of the Collections Resource Center at the Kemerer Museum of Decorative Arts, construction of the Blacksmith Shop on its original foundation, re-siting a mid-1800s bank barn to Burnside Plantation, restoration of the Waterwheel in the 1762 Waterworks, and development of the Historic Bethlehem Heritage Trail. HBMS also became an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.
