Destination industry leader Mike Konzen, museum executive and historian James F. Sefcik, Sr., and attorney Christie L. McEvoy-Derrico join the Board of Trustees at a moment of national recognition and long-range growth
Ticonderoga, N.Y. (September 9, 2026) — Fort Ticonderoga has elected three new members to its Board of Trustees: Mike Konzen, Chairman of PGAV and one of the most recognized figures in the global destination and attractions industry; James F. Sefcik, Sr., retired director of the Louisiana State Museum and a historian of the American Revolution; and Christie L. McEvoy-Derrico, an attorney and civic leader from Westchester County, New York. The three join the Board at the most consequential moment in the institution’s modern history.
The additions come as Fort Ticonderoga records its strongest season since welcoming its first visitors in 1909. Named Best Living History in America for the nation’s 250th anniversary by USA TODAY 10Best, and featured this year by The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Smithsonian Magazine, and Fodor’s, Fort Ticonderoga is on pace for its highest visitation on record as REAL TIME REVOLUTION® brings the fight for independence back to life in real time, on the ground where it happened, 250 years later to the day.
“These three trustees arrive with exactly what this moment asks of us,” said Beth L. Hill, President and CEO of Fort Ticonderoga. “Mike Konzen has shaped how the world experiences its greatest destinations. Jim Sefcik has led a major American museum and has spent a career teaching the Revolution. Christie McEvoy-Derrico brings legal judgment and a deep commitment to public service. Together they strengthen our capacity to serve a national audience at a time when that audience is finding us in record numbers.”
“Fort Ticonderoga is growing, and our Board is growing with it,” said Roy Davis, Chairman of the Board of Trustees. “Each of these individuals could serve anywhere. They chose this institution, and they chose it because of what is ahead.”
Mike Konzen
Mike Konzen is Chairman of PGAV, the St. Louis–based planning and design firm whose destinations practice is the largest independent creator of attractions and destinations in the industry, with projects on five continents. Since 1986 he has led planning, master planning, and experience design for UNESCO World Heritage sites, national parks, major museums, zoos and aquariums, and international resorts, including work at the Grand Canyon, Biltmore Estate, Kennedy Space Center, Gettysburg, Niagara Falls, and the Saint Louis Zoo. He is the publisher of Destinology and of Voice of the Visitor, PGAV’s annual study of the American attractions industry, and a frequent voice at IAAPA, the Marketing Outlook Forum, and the United States Conference of Mayors. He earned his Master of Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis and his Bachelor of Environmental Design from Miami University in Ohio.
Konzen brings a long relationship with Fort Ticonderoga, having led the comprehensive planning work that shaped the institution’s current direction. He serves as Chair of the Advancement Committee.
“I have spent my career helping places become destinations,” Konzen said. “Fort Ticonderoga is already one. What makes it rare is that the story is real, the ground is real, and the institution has the capacity to tell it honestly. There is enormous room to grow here, and the leadership to do it.”
James F. Sefcik, Sr.
James F. Sefcik, Sr. retired in 2004 as director of the Louisiana State Museum, one of the nation’s oldest and largest state museum systems, after three decades of leadership in the museum field. A native of Troy, New York, he returned to the region and resumed teaching, offering courses on the American Revolution at Union College, SUNY Empire State College, and Cape Cod Community College. He writes regularly on Revolutionary-era history and holds degrees from Saint Joseph’s University and Temple University, with additional graduate study at the University of Notre Dame. He lives in Rexford, New York.
“I have spent my life in museums and in the classroom, and I have not seen another site do what Fort Ticonderoga is doing,” Sefcik said. “The scholarship is serious, and the public history is fearless. That combination is uncommon.”
Christie L. McEvoy-Derrico
Christie L. McEvoy-Derrico is an attorney in private practice in Mamaroneck, New York, where she led the Law Offices of Christie L. McEvoy-Derrico, P.C. since 1997, with a practice spanning litigation, real estate, and municipal and land use matters. Her record of public service in Westchester County includes elected office, service on the Westchester County Criminal Justice Advisory Board, and years of pro bono work with community organizations. She is also an author and host of The Balance Dilemma podcast. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Boston University, a Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School, and a master’s degree from Middlebury College Bread Loaf School of English.
“My family has connected with this place, and once you understand what happened on this ground, you do not forget it,” McEvoy-Derrico said. “I am proud to help preserve and share it.”
A Board Expanding at a Moment of Growth
Fort Ticonderoga enters the fall of 2026 with national attention and record visitation. REAL TIME REVOLUTION®, the institution’s landmark public history initiative, recreates the events of the American Revolution on their exact dates, in the exact locations they unfolded, 250 years later to the day, and continues through 2027. The 2026 season closes with Hold the Line for Liberty on October 24 and 25, a battle reenactment recreating the Continental Army’s stand at Ticonderoga in October 1776, one of the Revolution’s most consequential and least-known victories.
The institution’s reach now extends well beyond the site. Its Affiliate School Program connects more than 3,000 K–12 schools and 320 colleges and universities across all fifty states, and Fort Ticonderoga was featured this year in the Netflix series The American Experiment, in PBS programming including Ken Burns’s The American Revolution and NOVA’s Revolutionary War Weapons, and in international coverage across Europe. In July 2026, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded Fort Ticonderoga $349,888 to catalog and digitize more than 29,000 Revolutionary-era objects, opening one of the nation’s most significant hidden collections to the public.
About Fort Ticonderoga: Welcoming visitors since 1909, Fort Ticonderoga is a major cultural destination, museum, historic site, and center for learning, offering the most comprehensive Revolutionary War experience in the nation. Home to the largest collection of 18th-century military objects in North America, Fort Ticonderoga engages more than 70,000 visitors each year with an economic impact of more than $16 million annually. Presenting vibrant programs, historic interpretation, boat cruises, tours, demonstrations, and exhibits, Fort Ticonderoga is open for daily visitation May through October, with special programs during Winter Quarters, November through April. Fort Ticonderoga is owned by The Fort Ticonderoga Association, a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization, and is supported in part through generous donations and with some general operating support made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts.
© The Fort Ticonderoga Association. 2026 All Rights Reserved.
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