Patrick Thrush

 

 

 

Patrick Thrush is a community development practitioner with over 25 years of experience.  An honors graduate of the University of South Florida with a BA in Sociology, he earned his MHP in Preservation & Architectural History from the University of Kentucky’s College of Design.  Patrick was the Historic Preservation Department’s Technology & Planning Coordinator during his graduate education–rising to Assistant Director of UK’s Center for Historic Architecture and Preservation [CHAP].  In 2004, he became Community & Economic Development Director for McCreary County, Kentucky–and Director of its Chamber of Commerce. Later, he spent 5 years as director for a 5 county, 59 agency HUD homelessness housing and community action consortium–the NY-501 Regional Continuum of Care.

Regardless of his position, he has maintained an active bond in historic preservation through housing initiatives, community development responsibilities, and consulting practice projects. He has served as a Board member for East Tennessee Preservation Alliance and KY-ABLE.  Patrick has delivered a number of conference presentations at the state and national levels–and led a variety of educational and training seminars in many areas of historic preservation and community development. He is now semi-retired, but occasionally takes on projects in architectural history research & National Register process, adaptive reuse, tax credit projects, and photographic documentation.

Patrick was born in Peoria, IL, and moved with his family to Florida in the mid-1960s.  He lived there for 32 years, relocating to Kentucky to pursue his graduate education.  His interests include photography, amateur radio (Extra Class license, see my page here at QRZ.com), restoring old radios, woodworking, computers, and writing.  This includes interest and much experience in website development since 1996–with such platforms as WordPress, Joomla, SMF, vBulletin, and Xenforo.

 

 

Donna Thrush

Donna Thrush holds over 25 years of experience in community action & development as a facilitator, trainer, program developer, grant specialist, and administrator. She graduated with honors from the University of South Florida, with a BA in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences (Psychology/Social Work). She is a HUD CDBG/HOME Certified Specialist in both Regulations & Administration and has administered over 30 HUD, USDA, ARC, Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) and other federally funded initiatives. Her work has received awards and recognition from the U.S. Department of Energy, the Governor of Kentucky, and the Kentucky Legislature.

She served as founding Executive Director and general contractor for an affordable housing agency [a CHDO] that built or rehabilitated ENERGY STAR® certified sustainable, affordable homes in McCreary County, Kentucky for 7 years–and later assumed the role of statewide Program Director for HUD Community Development Technical Assistance in Tennessee. Donna then spent 6 years as Senior HUD TA Project Manager for the Center on Family Homelessness/American Institutes for Research. She specializes in organizational development, capacity building, underwriting, grant writing, training and project operations.  She currently works as a foster care case manager for our county Department of Social Services.

Donna was born in Otego, NY, and relocated to Florida in the late-1980s.  Her interests include travel, cooking, naturopathic medicine, gardening, and reading.
A Bit about our Family

Donna and I were married on February 13, 1993–just before Valentine’s Day.  We are one of those serendipitous couple stories that never should have happened–involving a disappointing apartment search and a several-week-old newspaper ad found in the recycling.  Since then, we have had many adventures–for better or worse!  One of our most industrious (and expensive) serial enterprises is the acquisition of attractive, older houses–and then doing the repairs and remodeling necessary to keep them functional and comfortable.  Luckily I have the knowledge, skills, and a garage shop filled with tools that put me on a solid footing with most general contractors…

In the spring, we often throw in a vegetable garden–or at a minimum, engage in quite a bit of colorful landscaping.  Late spring also brings the launch of our small 3500 gallons swimming pool.  We use a 120 square foot steerable solar panel array to keep the water nicely between 86-92°F for the entire season, ending in late September.  Much fun is had during those times that our grandson has joined us for his summer vacation–otherwise, we both look forward most evenings to a relaxing swim and soak!

We both enjoy travel, especially to major cities, where we can experience the heartbeat and diversity of cultures to be found there.  And then, of course, there is the food and the museums!  The busy 24-hour cycle allows many opportunities for my ‘street photography‘ penchant, and the grand mid-19th Century Rural Garden Cemeteries offer us both an interesting day of wandering–and numerous photographic subjects for my “Guardians of Stone” fine arts photo print series.  For a look at a few of my photographs, please visit here.