Team Details | jrphistorical

Our Team

Team

JRP principals and partners are professional public historians with proven management capabilities in the financing, staffing, budgeting, and scheduling of research and historic evaluation projects. JRP’s professional staff includes architectural historians, historians, and research assistants with degrees or advanced degrees in history and historic preservation. All of our principals, partners, and historians meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Professional Qualification Standards for Architectural History and History as set forth in the Code of Federal Regulations (36 CFR Part 61).

Partners

Stephen R. Wee, Founding Partner / Principal

As a founding partner of JRP with Rand Herbert, Stephen Wee (M.A. United States and the American West, University of California, Davis; B.A. History, University of Washington, Seattle) has been a key element in building the firm over a period of four decades into one of the most successful historical consulting firms in the country. He has served as a consulting historian, principal investigator, and project manager on hundreds of historical research investigations for federal, state and local agencies and private companies. Mr. Wee has special interest and expertise in the history of California and the American West and the history of environmental, natural resources and water issues in these regions.

Mr. Wee has testified as an expert historian in the Superior Courts of California for Sacramento and Kern counties and has testified and/or submitted written testimony as an expert witness before the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of California; in the Snake River Drainage Basin Adjudication, 5th Judicial District of the State of Idaho; for various water rights hearings before the California State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Water Rights; in the San Pedro-Gila River Adjudication, Maricopa County Superior Court, Arizona; and before the Hearing Office Panel for the State of Oregon Water Resources Department in the Klamath River Adjudication.

JRP and Mr. Wee have provided expert historian services to a broad spectrum of clients including many federal, state and local governmental agencies; municipalities; private corporations; public utility companies; natural resources and water rights attorneys; individual land owners and water users; water resources agencies; mutual water companies; irrigation and water districts; and engineering/environmental consulting firms. Among the types of water-related studies undertaken as a consulting and expert historian have been: riparian and pre-1914 appropriative water rights investigations; histories of the development of water systems for irrigation, municipal, mining, hydroelectric power, and other uses; federal reserved water rights on Indian reservations, military reservations, and national forests; water rights due diligence studies for real estate transactions; historical research related to water boundary investigations; legislative histories; pueblo water rights; histories of inland commercial navigation on California rivers and lakes; and reclamation, flood control, flood management and flooding histories.

Mr. Wee has also worked as a consulting historian on numerous historic resources management projects over the past thirty years. Many of these projects have involved inventory, evaluation, and nomination of historic properties under California Register and National Register criteria; compliance under federal Section 106 of the NHPA and under state CEQA guidelines; and development of historic resources agreement documents, management plans and mitigation programs. Mr. Wee qualifies as a historian/architectural historian under the United States Secretary of the Interior’s Professional Qualification Standards (as defined in 36 CFR Part 61).

Currently the president of JRP Historical Consulting, LLC, Mr. Wee was one of the founding partners of Jackson Research Projects in 1981 and has remained a principal of that firm’s various successors-in-interest over the past thirty years. Mr. Wee has served on several state and local commissions and on the boards of professional service organizations, including: the Information Center Procedural Advisory Committee, a Standing Committee of the California Office of Historic Preservation and the California State Historic Resources Commission; Board of Directors, Executive Committee, and Chairman of the Legislative Action Committee, California Council for the Promotion of History; and Commissioner of the Historical Resources Commission, City of Davis. Mr. Wee is a member of the National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History and its state affiliate the California Council for the Promotion of History, the Western History Association, the Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society, and the California Historical Society.

Stephen Wee's Resume

Rand F. Herbert, Founding Partner / Principal

Rand Herbert (M.A.T. History, University of California, Davis; B.A. History, University of California, Berkeley), a founding partner of JRP with Stephen Wee, has worked as a consulting historian on a wide variety of historical research, expert witness, and cultural resources management projects for nearly 40 years. His experience includes the full panoply of cultural resources studies for history / architectural history, including research, context preparation, inventory and evaluation, assessment of effects, preparation of memoranda of agreement for mitigation of effects, and completion of mitigation measures under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and under CEQA within the State of California. Mr. Herbert also has provided expert witness services and testimony in more than a dozen cases or administrative proceedings in California and Oregon.

In the realm of cultural resources Mr. Herbert has managed projects involving large numbers of resources, as well as analysis of single buildings. Some of the resources he has studied include military structures at more than 40 Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Air Force facilities around the western US; powerhouses, ditches, canals, dams, bridges and other large engineering works; and a wide range of commercial, industrial, and residential structures. Mr. Herbert has prepared, and managed teams preparing, required mitigation studies including HABS/HAER recordation for historic resources being adversely affected by proposed projects. He has also led JRP’s projects related to power source Applications for Certification submitted to the California Energy Commission. In these efforts JRP works as a member of an overall environmental team, contributing to historic resources studies.

Mr. Herbert has also provided expert witness services and testimony in more than a dozen cases or administrative proceedings, in California superior courts in Sacramento, Yuba, Kern, Tulare counties, in flooding / torts cases including in the influential Paterno lawsuit, cases related to inland navigation and navigability of California waterways, and pre-1914 water rights; federal district court in San Francisco, in the Brother Jonathan marine salvage case; and before a State of Oregon Water Resources Department administrative hearing office panel on Klamath River water rights. Mr. Herbert has also provided historian expert consulting services to the US Department of Justice, Department of Justice of the State of California, and a number of law firms. He has also made presentations before a variety of planning agencies and city/county governments, and has given numerous lectures on topics related to public history.

Mr. Herbert’s academic fields of specialization were in California and Western United States history. He taught a graduate seminar in research and public history at California State University, Sacramento (2001–2012), and has taught history at community colleges in Sacramento and Solano counties. He has served the City of Davis as a commissioner on its Historic Resources Management Commission since 2003, and has been its chair since 2006. In 1990, Mr. Herbert was elected chair of the California Council for the Promotion of History (CCPH) and served a two-year term. He served as one of CCPH’s representatives on California Resources Secretary Douglas Wheeler’s Historic Preservation Task Force (1992–1994), and on the National Cultural Alliance’s Cultural Awareness Campaign, California Steering Committee. Mr. Herbert is a Registered Professional Historian (#508) with CCPH and a member of the National Council on Public History, California Historical Society, and the Ninth Circuit Court Historical Society.

Rand Herbert's Resume

Meta Bunse, Principal

Principal Meta Bunse (M.A. History (Public History), California State University, Sacramento; B.A. Women's Studies and B.A. Italian, University of California, Davis) was among the first group of staff at JRP, joining the company in 1991 as a research assistant. She has served as a consulting historian, primary investigator, and staff manager on multiple projects involving extensive field recordation of historic properties throughout the state of California, and a substantial amount of research at many public and private repositories, including the National Archives in Washington, D.C. She has authored and contributed to numerous technical reports and compliance documents such as historic survey reports for both Section 106 of NHPA and for CEQA, findings of effect, mitigation agreements, and HABS/HAER documentation.

Ms. Bunse joined JRP after completing her BA in Women’s Studies and Italian at the University of California, Davis. While at JRP, she earned her MA in History with an emphasis in Public History from California State University, Sacramento. She served eight years on the board of the Woodland Historic Preservation Commission. She is currently President of the California Council for the Promotion of History (CCPH), as well as Chairperson for the CCPH Mini-Grants Committee, and is a registered professional historian (#566) with that organization. In addition, Ms. Bunse is a member of the Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Society of Architectural Historians, and the California Preservation Foundation.

Meta Bunse's Resume

Christopher D. McMorris, Partner / Architectural Historian

A partner since 2006, Christopher McMorris (M.S. Historic Preservation, Columbia University, New York; B.A. History and B.A. Music, University of Rochester, New York) has nearly two decades' worth of experience in cultural resources management. He specializes in conducting historic resource studies for compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and the California Environmental Quality Act as well as other historic preservation projects. He has served as a lead historian / architectural historian, principal investigator, and project manager on projects for federal, state, and local government as well as for engineering/environmental consulting firms. Many of these projects have involved inventory and evaluation of historic resources under the criteria for the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historical Resources, along with analysis of effects projects may have on historic properties and measures to mitigate those effects.

In addition to his work at JRP, Mr. McMorris is a lecturer at California State University, Sacramento’s Public History Program, and he has conducted multiple historic resources compliance training seminars. Mr. McMorris also has presented at conferences including the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preserving Historic Roads in America conference and at California Preservation Foundation conferences. Mr. McMorris is a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation/National Trust Forum, California Preservation Foundation, and San Francisco Architectural Heritage. Mr. McMorris won the Award for Outstanding Thesis from Columbia University, New York where he received a MS in Historic Preservation.

Christopher McMorris's Resume

Bryan T. Larson, Partner / Historian

Bryan Larson (M.A. History (Public History), California State University, Sacramento, 2005; B.A. History, University of California, Los Angeles, 1993) joined JRP in 1998 as an intern and rose to become a partner in 2015. His experience at the firm runs the gamut of JRP's services, from historical architectural and infrastructure surveys to land use and water resource histories. With special expertise in cultural resources studies involving military installations and historical transportation routes, Mr. Larson has undertaken and supervised large-scale field recordation of historic sites throughout California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona as well as a substantial amount of research at many public and private archival repositories, libraries, and government agencies.

In his nearly twenty years with JRP, Mr. Larson has prepared studies for various private, local, state, and federal agencies including CEQA and Sections 106 and 110 compliance documentation and Historic American Building Survey / Historic American Engineering Record (HABS / HAER) reports. Mr. Larson has led extensive building surveys on such military installations as Edwards Air Force Base in California and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in Arizona. He has studied the coastal route that predates California's present-day Highway 1, and supervised studies of various roads and highways in Nevada. Mr. Larson has also surveyed the built environment on five of California's Channel Islands.

Mr. Larson is a board member of the California Council for the Promotion of History (CCPH).

Bryan Larson's Resume

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Staff

Scott A. Miltenberger, Ph.D., Senior Historian II

Senior Historian Scott Miltenberger (Ph.D., United States History, University of California, Davis, 2006; M.A., United States History, University of California, Davis, 2001; A.B., History, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, 1999) specializes in historical research of environmental and natural resources issues for litigation and expert witness testimony. Since joining JRP in 2006, he has made studies of alleged riparian water rights, pre-1914 (California) water rights, historical ground water rights, and federal reserved water rights for individuals, governments, and irrigation districts in California and throughout the West. Dr. Miltenberger played a lead role in JRP’s record collection efforts in support of the State of California’s Department of Water Resources Levee Evaluation Program, and has assisted local flood-control agencies in securing historical documentation and technical data of levee performance. He has also led investigations of land ownership, survey / boundary disputes, and potentially-responsible parties for toxic clean-up under the provisions of CERCLA. Most recently, Dr. Miltenberger has testified as an expert historian in the Superior Court of California for Sacramento County, and has testified as an expert historian in the San Pedro-Gila River Adjudication, Maricopa County Superior Court, Arizona.

Dr. Miltenberger has extensive historical research experience. He has conducted primary and secondary research at a number of public and private repositories throughout the United States - including the American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, Massachusetts), the New York Public Library, the California State Archives, the California State Library, the Idaho State Historical Society, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the National Archives (D.C., College Park, Seattle, Riverside, and Denver facilities), as well as the Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan Presidential Libraries.

Prior to joining JRP, Dr. Miltenberger taught at the University of California, Davis, Cosumnes River College, and Sacramento City College. He served as the chief researcher-writer for the City of New York/Parks and Recreation Department’s Historical Signs Program in 2000, and has contributed to a historical journals, encyclopedias, and edited collections. Dr. Miltenberger is a member of the American Historical Association, the American Society for Environmental History, the National Council of Public History, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Since 2012, he has served on the City of Davis’s Historical Resources Management Commission.

Scott Miltenberger's Resume

Toni Webb, Architectural Historian III

Since joining JRP in 2000, Architectural Historian Toni Webb (B.F.A., Historic Preservation, Savannah College of Art and Design, 1994) has been involved in many elements of cultural resources management and general historical research at the firm including historic architectural surveys, land use, and historic resource compliance documents. Ms. Webb serves as a principal investigator, researcher and writer. Since joining JRP she has completed extensive field recordation on historic sites in the state of California, and a substantial amount of research at many public and private repositories. In addition to research and writing, Ms. Webb’s skills include HABS / HAER documentation, National Register of Historic Places nomination forms, and the design and maintenance of project–specific computer databases with the capacity to manage thousands of records.

Prior to JRP, Ms. Webb worked on various historic resource management projects in Georgia. She is a member of the National Trust Forum (National Trust for Historic Preservation), the Society of Architectural Historians, DOCOMOMO/US and San Francisco Architectural Heritage.

Toni Webb's Resume

Heather K. Norby, Historian III

Historian Heather Norby (M.A., History, University of California, Berkeley, 2002) joined JRP in 2008. Her experience at JRP encompasses many elements of general historical research and cultural resource management. She has authored and contributed to numerous technical reports and architectural survey and evaluation projects. In particular, Ms. Norby has developed expertise in the cultural resource management of water-related infrastructure including complex dam systems, canals, and hydropower projects. In 2012 she gave a presentation at the California Council for the Promotion of History conference on the USBR’s Cachuma Project that highlighted engineering and construction difficulties the agency overcame to construct Tecolote Tunnel. She is also experienced with evaluation and management of cultural landscapes having contributed to the cultural landscape section of the National Register of Historic Places nomination of the Naval Air Station Alameda Historic District as well as being involved with effects analyses of cultural landscapes.

Ms. Norby has conducted research in primary and secondary source material at public and private repositories throughout California and at the National Archives in Washington D.C. and Riverside. Her experience with field recordation encompasses a diverse body of resources from mountain dams to suburban subdivisions to military buildings and structures. Her skills include report production, document management, and graphic illustration. In May 2011, Ms. Norby completed the National Preservation Institute seminar “Section 106: An Introduction,” which covered the regulatory setting of the Section 106 process and included such topics as consultation, identification and evaluation, findings of adverse effect, and memoranda of agreement.

Heather Norby's Resume

Cheryl Brookshear, Architectural Historian II

Architectural Historian Cheryl Brookshear (M.S., Historic Preservation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 2000; B.A., History, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1994) has experience in many elements of general historical research areas and cultural resources management. Since joining JRP in 2006, she has conducted primary and secondary research at several public and private repositories in California. Ms. Brookshear has contributed to cultural resources management projects in many roles from field recordation of historic to site-specific research, to writing of historical context material for Section 106 and CEQA compliance documents. Her work at JRP has included preparation of agricultural, industrial, and residential histories for a variety of property types for projects that have also included engineering features such as power generation facilities and water control structures.

In her previous experience, Ms. Brookshear conducted research in various government records as part of a documentation project for the Hearthstone Historic House Museum, Appleton, Wisconsin, as well as completing site surveys and research for National Register of Historic Places nominations as part of her graduate work in Pennsylvania.