Monica Rhodes is the director of Resource Management at the National Park Foundation. In this role, Rhodes oversees facility and construction grant-making to the National Park Service and helps leads efforts to develop strategies for African American and Latinx engagement. Prior to her role at NPF, Rhodes was the founding director of the National Trust’s HOPE (Hands-On Preservation Experience) Crew, which was created to expand the preservation movement to a younger, more diverse audience. In the five years of leading HOPE Crew, Rhodes guided over 165 preservation construction projects, trained 750 young people and veterans, and engaged 3700 volunteers in large-scale community events. Under her leadership, the program garnered more than 1 billion media impressions and supported $18 million of preservation work, primarily in national parks. Before joining the Trust, Rhodes worked as a consultant to preservation non-profits.
Rhodes' work has been featured in national outlets like PBS NewsHour, Huffington Post, Washington Post, and U.S. News & World Report. She also appeared in a feature spread on women in the preservation movement in Essence Magazine’s Spring 2018 issue. Separate from her work with NPF, Rhodes sits on the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP) and the Market Center Community Development Corporation board in Baltimore City. She also serves as an advisor for the DC LGBTQ Historic Context Study and a project reviewer for the Facilities and Buildings grant program for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
Rhodes earned her undergraduate degree in History at the University of Tulsa and a Master’s degree in African American Studies at Temple University. She also attended the University of Pennsylvania where she received a Master’s degree in Historic Preservation.
