Valley Forge museum group fires CEO

The board of the American Revolution Center, mired in a bitter and expensive fight to build a museum complex on private land inside Valley Forge national park, has fired its hard-charging president and CEO, Tom Daly.

Daly will be replaced in January by Bruce Cole, an art historian who is head of the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, and someone who in an interview described himself as a "bridge builder and peacemaker."

Board members at the revolution center, known as ARC, had come to fear that, without a change in leadership, the $375 million project could fail, doomed by a potentially years-long court battle against allies of the National Park Service.

"Tom has done a great job in bringing it up to this point, but he's made a few enemies," said H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, the entrepreneur and philanthropist who leads the ARC board. "We feel Bruce will take it to a new chapter where we can have a better relationship with the National Park Service."

The change was not the result of a sudden event or a particular incident, Lenfest said, but a recognition that new leadership was needed if relations are to be mended. He said he hoped Cole could head off a lawsuit promised by the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group.

Daly, who has agreed to a two-year consultant's position with ARC, said last night that he had no comment.

In votes before the Lower Providence Board of Supervisors and the township zoning board, ARC has won battle after battle - but seemed in danger of losing the war. ARC won preliminary approval to build a three-story museum, a four-story conference center, and a trailhead structure on 78 acres it owns in the park.

But the opposition has been fierce and consistent, with Park Service officials and park neighbors insisting the project would desecrate an American landmark.

The change in leadership happened fairly quickly, according to people familiar with what occurred. Board members have known for a while that, in aggressively pushing the project, Daly accumulated not just battle scars but adversaries. As November dawned, the board learned that Cole, who had about a year remaining on his NEH appointment, was interested in taking over.

A board subcommittee met with Cole last week and recommended that he be hired.

Daly was not told that a replacement was being sought until Cole had been retained.

Daly, a Vietnam-era graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, retains a strict military bearing and a direct manner. He never shied from battle against ARC's opponents, accusing them of spreading disinformation - an assertion that won few friends among Park Service officials who saw themselves as defending a national icon.

It's also true that no one worked harder than Daly to try to bring the ARC complex into being. He relentlessly promoted the museum, appearing at scores if not hundreds of nighttime community meetings, zoning hearings, court proceedings and public gatherings, all while traveling the East Coast to try to raise money for ARC.

That fund-raising is key, as the cost of the development rises with each passing year. The task has become more difficult as the project has dragged on, for years, and harder still as the economy has soured.

The National Parks Conservation Association has pledged to fight ARC in Montgomery County Court after losing a bid last month to stop the project through a zoning appeal. Groups including the Friends of Valley Forge, the Lower Providence Concerned Citizens, and the Sierra Club plan to hold a candlelight vigil Sunday at the park's Memorial Arch.

In an interview, Cole, 70, sounded a clear note of conciliation. He said that ARC would proceed with plans to build on its land on the north side of the Schuylkill, but that everything else about the project - its size, design and layout - was up for review.

Staffing and personnel will also be under review, he said.

Cole spoke of his ability to build bipartisan support among lawmakers in Washington and said he would bring that approach to Valley Forge, site of the 1777-78 winter encampment of Washington's army. He was eager to launch a component of ARC that would teach young people about the Revolution, a history too often neglected.

"My background and interest, my passion, really, coincides with ARC," Cole said. "There is no more important event in our history than the Revolution."

President Bush appointed Cole as the eighth chairman of the NEH in 2001, and the Senate unanimously approved a second term in 2005. Born in Ohio, Cole earned a master's degree from Oberlin College and a doctorate from Bryn Mawr College, according to the NEH.

Previously he was a professor of art history and comparative literature at Indiana University, and the William E. Suida Fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, Italy.

In 2008, Italy made Cole a Knight of the Grand Cross, a rare honor. In the interview, he joked that he may need knight's armor for the task ahead.

Last month, the Lower Providence zoning board ended months of debate by casting three ballots that effectively cleared the way for ARC. The votes concluded an often volatile hearing process, the forum through which ARC and the Park Service debated and criticized each other's vision for Valley Forge.

ARC insists its project will be a proud addition to the park, the first museum dedicated to promoting the story of the American Revolution, while opponents call it ruinous, sure to damage wildlife, wetlands and irreplaceable historic property.

When proposed nearly a decade ago, the museum was to be built near the park's welcome center as part of a public-private partnership. That union fell apart last year amid disputes over fund-raising, management and control, and ARC moved ahead on its own.

Cole said he saw the museum project as a "win-win," that the Park Service and ARC could serve and enhance each other.

But Daly had said much the same.

In an interview, Lenfest was reminded that as recently as July 29, he had professed complete confidence in Daly, and in the ability of the chief executive officer and his staff to lead the project to completion.

"In July, we didn't know about Bruce," he answered. "I don't want to diminish the credit that's due Tom Daly to bring us where we are today, but we need a new leader."