George Born, a Brown University graduate, is the new director of the Providence Preservation Society. He has previously worked for the Historic Florida Keys Foundation.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

PROVIDENCE — George Born hands a photo across his new desk at the Providence Preservation Society. It’s a clipping from a local newspaper in York, Maine, more than 20 years ago.

It’s clearly a younger Born in the photo, which shows him in colonial dress, planting an 18th-century garden, in full period dress. And he’s not the least bit embarrassed to look back at his teenage self in the frilly white shirt and knickers.

“I really believe, through experience, in the value of preservation education,” Born said, reminiscing over his teen years, which included enough wholesome preservation activity to make any mother proud.

“If you introduce this to people at the beginning of their life, they take it with them throughout,” Born said.

After a career that has taken him to the Smithsonian, seen him crisscrossing the Caribbean as a schooner’s first mate, hand-making furniture in North Carolina and then chronicling historic Key West, Born has landed in Providence as the newest director of the Providence Preservation Society.

It’s a homecoming of sorts for the 1987 Brown University graduate, who inherits the top staff job at the preservation society at a time when the city has recently lost several historic buildings, and is promulgating new rules to try to protect what it has.

The preservation society serves as the first line of defense for Providence’s buildings, and the director is supposed to fill the alarm-sounding role of Paul Revere — lobbying City Hall, dealing with the media, and drawing the line in the sand that determines which buildings need fighting for, and which can be let go.

The preservation society each year publicizes a list of the city’s 10 most endangered historic buildings. Last year, 4 of the 10 were at least partially demolished. The Preservation Society has brought Born here to be the vocal advocate for the city’s buildings, embracing the bully pulpit and putting a human face on the buildings.

“I think you have to relate historic buildings to people,” he said, explaining that people need to understand the building is important not just for its architecture, but for its history and the stories it can hold inside.

If he had a personal conversion moment, it was in the woods near York, after a fire at a historic 18th-century home. He was a teenager, and it was winter, and the charred black wood of the house was stark against the white snow. Born wandered down to the site and was struck by the loss, both of the building, and of the memories it held inside.

“I remember going down there, and how black the house was. That also got me thinking about how valuable these resources are, how irreplaceable,” he said.

Returning to Providence is particularly satisfying for Born. He credits his college years here with helping him to form his thoughts on how buildings contribute to the personality of a city.

“Coming to Providence, and then going to D.C. really got me thinking of what makes a great city,” he said. And he has found the city grander and more focused now than when he left in the 1980s. “I think Providence has really grown up and become aware of what it has, claiming its place.”

After college, he worked at the Smithsonian in Washington, at the Archives of American Art — big name, not a big job, he said.

“I was very, very low on the totem pole,” he said, dropping his hand to the floor to show just how low.

He moved around over the next decade, serving as first mate on the Harvey Gamage, a 95-foot schooner sailing the Virgin Islands, and made furniture by hand in North Carolina.

“My mother must have been thinking ‘This is why I sent you to college?’ ” he said.

Mulling over his future, he realized he wanted to spend his life working in a job that would tap into his lifelong love of preservation. He entered the University of Vermont historic preservation graduate program.

Afterward, he landed at the Historic Florida Keys Foundation.

“Key West proved to be a really great laboratory for understanding all of the really vital issues around historic preservation,” he said.

In that role, Born was seemingly everywhere, lecturing, writing newspaper columns, and even authoring two books about the area: Preserving Paradise, a 2006 compilation of his newspaper columns, and Historic Florida Keys, a 2003 compendium of historic sights in the area. When he left for Providence this spring, a newspaper editorial called him the “spiritual leader” of historic preservation in Key West.

It was partly his efforts to bring historic preservation directly to the public that made him an attractive candidate for Providence, according to PPS board members.

When former director Jack Gold jumped to a prestigious preservation job in San Francisco, PPS treasurer Victoria Veh took over on an interim basis, holding the position for more than six months.

Born started this job in June, and was immediately thrust into discussions with his alma mater, Brown University, over the fate of three Brown-owned buildings on Angell Street, including the Urban Environmental Lab. It’s unclear how that debate will turn out, but the key to mass preservation in a city like this, Born said, is strong laws, which he feels the city is now forging.

“You’re looking at a systemic problem. We can go around going up to bat for each individual building, but when you’re having problems like that over and over, it’s a sign that a more comprehensive plan is needed.”

Preservation Society Board Chairman Oliver H.L. Bennett lauded the job Born has done so far, saying that his enthusiasm is a perfect fit. While he’s happy to hear the praise, Born described himself as a naïf for now, one who can only hope to improve on the good thing he has found.

“At this point, I’m still in the listening phase of my arrival here, learning about the organization, learning about the community, learning about the board.

“We’ve got a great tradition, we’ve done some great things — how do we make it better?”

dbarbari@projo.com