Mark Greene Honored for Exemplary Service

The Society of American Archivists (SAA) recently presented its Council Exemplary Service award to Mark Greene, recently retired director of the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center.

The award, not given every year, is for a special contribution to the archives profession, and especially to SAA.

A fellow and past president of SAA, Greene, for the past 30 years, has provided significant and continuous leadership to SAA and its many subgroups, culminating in service as president of the association during 2007-08.

“He distinguished himself through his consistent and relentless demonstration of a vision for the archives profession that has frequently caused him to challenge accepted theory and practice and to champion new approaches and directions for the betterment of the profession,” according to the SAA citation.

During his career, Greene has made impressive contributions to the literary canon of archival science, publishing numerous articles and contributing chapters to books addressing archival appraisal, archival meaning and value, archival ethics, archives management, and arrangement and description.

Greene has worked continuously and enthusiastically to mentor, train and educate emerging archivists so that they, too, could achieve success in the archival endeavor.

After earning an M.A. in U.S. history from the University of Michigan, Greene began his career as an archivist at Carleton College. He then served as curator of manuscripts acquisition at the Minnesota Historical Society and as the head of Research Center Programs at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich. He came to UW in 2002.

The award was presented at the recent SAA annual meeting in Cleveland, Ohio.