Loading Please Wait
Loading Please Wait
Loading Please Wait
The Architectural Conservancy of Ontario (ACO) Toronto Branch roots go back to ACO's founding 1933. Started by University of Toronto Professor Eric Arthur, and based in Toronto while working across Ontario, ACO was incorporated to help communities preserve buildings and structures of architectural merit, as well as places of natural beauty and interest. Eric Arthur wrote the seminal book on Toronto architecture, Toronto No Mean City.
When ACO began to form branches throughout Ontario, Toronto was established as a separate branch first known as the Toronto Region Architectural Conservancy (TRAC), and later as Toronto Architectural Conservancy (TAC). Toronto remains one of the largest ACO branches.Interim President: Alex Miller-Gerrard
Alex Miller-Gerrard is a current member of the ACO Toronto Executive. She serves as the Executive Director of the Town of York Historical Society and Toronto's First Post Office Museum and has previously held positions at the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre (now Toronto Holocaust Museum), the Canadian Automotive Museum, the Peterborough Museum & Archives, and Trent University. In these roles, she developed skills in research, program development, administration, fundraising, and project management. Alex is committed to preserving and celebrating the rich history of communities, fostering a greater appreciation for our shared heritage.
Interim Vice President: Alessandro Tersigni
Alessandro Tersigni is a member of the ACO Toronto Executive where he chairs the committee on TOBuilt, the organization's city-wide, public, digital database of buildings, structures, landscapes, and cultural sites. He was previously TOBuilt research manager, in which capacity he directed large-scale surveys of detached suburban houses built between 1940 and 2000 in Toronto’s former boroughs and surviving prewar walk-up apartment buildings. Alessandro is a cultural critic whose writing has appeared in The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Believer, The Point, and elsewhere. He is currently a writer and project manager of cultural initiatives at ERA Architects and holds an MA in cultural reporting and criticism from New York University.
Secretary: Adam Sobolak
University of Toronto BA 1986/MA 1989, ACOTO member since 1984, Secretary since 2013, forever an urban observer and master of the Jane Jacobs sidewalk ballet.
Treasurer: Patricia Milne
Patricia Milne is is a member of the ACO Toronto Executive and acting Treasurer. She is also a member of the City of Toronto’s “Toronto East York Community Preservation Panel” and acts as a liaison between the two groups. An OAA licensed Architect practicing in Toronto, she completed her architecture degree with honours at the University of Waterloo and then did an MBA at the University of Toronto. She also holds LEED Green Associate status which she applies to her projects, melding contemporary architecture with sustainable building principles and heritage restoration. Patricia firmly believes that both traditional and contemporary heritage buildings can enhance rather than impede development and enrich the experience of our city.
Member at large: F. Leslie Thompson
F. Leslie Thompson MFA, MBA FCSI, CMC, ICD.D, HRCCC is an ACO Toronto board member, independent corporate director, visual artist and retired risk management consultant. She has served as an independent corporate director for 25+ years on the boards of listed companies, crown agencies, pension funds, municipal boards and cultural charities. She is a former Chair of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario Board. In that role, Leslie received ACO’s Mary Millard Award for special contributions to ACO. Leslie was the founder and president of LESRISK®, Debt and Risk Management Inc., a risk management consultancy that served financial institutions and governments in Canada and abroad for over twenty-five years. Previously, she was a Vice President at two global banks and led the start-up of an international-scale Treasury for the Province of Ontario (now OFA). Leslie serves on ACO Toronto’s TOBuilt and Investment Committees and restores her early Toronto home.
Member at large: Marybeth McTeague
Marybeth McTeague is a member of the ACO Toronto Executive, a Board member of ACO and the ACO representative for Ontario Place for All. Trained as an architectural historian with MAs from Columbia and Cambridge Universities and as an architect at the Bartlett (RIBA), she has practiced as a conservation architect in the UK, at Spencer Higgins Architects, taught at TMU’s Department of Architectural Science and was employed by the Ontario Heritage Trust as a Capital Projects Manager. Most recently she was a Heritage Planner at the City of Toronto where her research focused on late 20th century architecture, historic neighbourhoods and she managed the Heritage Grant and Tax Rebate programs. Her writing has been published in Canadian Architect, Journal for the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada and Competitions magazine, etc. In 2022, she was nominated for the ACO’s Stephen A. Otto Award for Research and Documentation. She is a member of the Junction HCD Board and CAHP.
STAFF
Donor Development: Zoe Goluch
Operations and Development Coordinator: Justine Tenzer
