Three New Members Join the Board of Directors

PHILADELPHIA, PA– October 11, 2012 – The Board of Directors of the American Revolution Center has elected Ray Halbritter, Oneida Nation Representative, Richard Vague, a private investor, and Gordon S. Wood, distinguished scholar of the American Revolution, to the Board of Directors. “These new Board members will further our mission to engage a broad public in the understanding of the American Revolution and its ongoing legacy,” said H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, Chairman.

Ray Halbritter has been Nation Representative of the Oneida Indian Nation since 1975 and Chief Executive Officer of its enterprises since 1990. His accomplishments include achieving federal government recognition of the Nation’s traditional form of government, creating numerous health and social programs for Nation members, constructing new housing, and establishing education and culture programs. Halbritter earned his law degree from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from Syracuse University. He served as chairman of the Turning Stone Resort Championship and the Upstate New York Empowerment Fund, the charitable arm of the tournament, which raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for dozens of Central New York charities and civic groups over the history of the tournament. He is a member of the Recording Academy; the National Advisory Council for the American Indian Program at Cornell University; the National Congress of American Indians; and United South and Eastern Tribes. The Oneida Indian Nation announced a $10 million gift to support the construction of the Museum of the American Revolution in July 2012. The gift was made in part to recognize the little known, but extraordinary role the Oneidas played in the Revolutionary War.

Richard Vague is a private investor currently involved as a managing partner of Gabriel Investments, an early stage investment fund, and as managing director of The Miletos Group. Previously, he was co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Energy Plus, an electricity and natural gas supply company operating in states throughout the U.S. that was sold to NRG Energy in 2011. Vague was also co-founder of two credit card companies, FirstUSA, which grew to be the largest Visa issuer in the industry and which was sold to Bank One in 1997, and Juniper Financial, the fastest growing credit card issuer of the past decade, which was sold to Barclays PLC in 2004. Vague currently serves on the boards of Heartland Payment Systems of Princeton, New Jersey, Think Direct Marketing of Tampa, Florida, and GoodCents Corporation of Atlanta, Georgia. He is president of the Philadelphia Live Arts and Fringe Festival, and on the boards of the University of Pennsylvania Press, the Franklin Institute, the Dean's Advisory Council of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, the U.S. State Department's Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and the U.S. Department of Energy's Electricity Advisory Committee. Vague is co-founder of the Afghanistan Study Group, and is also the editor of the blog and email newsletter service DelanceyPlace.com.

Gordon S. Wood is a preeminent scholar of the American Revolution and the early Republic. He is the Alva O. Way University Professor and professor of history emeritus at Brown. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Tufts and his Ph.D. from Harvard. He taught at Harvard and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty at Brown in 1969. Wood’s 1992 book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, won the Pulitzer Prize for history and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize. He is the author of The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (1969), which won the Bancroft Prize in history and the John H. Dunning Prize in 1970; The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin (2004), which won the Julia Ward Howe Prize from the Boston Authors Club in 2005; and a number of other distinguished books on early American history. His volume in the Oxford History of the United States, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, published in October 2009, was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in history. The Pulitzer committee described it as “a lucid exploration of a turbulent era when a profoundly changing America, despite the sin of slavery, came to see itself as a beacon to the world.” He is currently editing John Adams’s manuscript letters, and has published two of four volumes for the Library of America. He is now working on the final two volumes that take Adams from 1784 to his death in 1826. Wood is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. About the American Revolution Center The American Revolution Center is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization is establishing the Museum of the American Revolution in the historic area of Philadelphia. The museum will house original artifacts, manuscripts, rare books and works of art owned by The American Revolution Center and tell the complete story of the American Revolution and its ongoing legacy. For more information, please visit www.AmericanRevolutionCenter.org or call 877-740-1776.

About The Museum of the American Revolution:

The Museum of the American Revolution will tell the complete story of the American Revolution using its distinguished collection of objects, artifacts, artwork, and manuscripts. Permanent and special exhibition galleries, theaters, and large-scale tableaux will bring to life the original “greatest generation,” and engage people in the history and continuing relevance of the American Revolution. Construction is now underway for the new Museum that is being built steps away from Independence Hall, Carpenter’s Hall, Franklin Court, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the Revolution. It will serve as a portal to the nation’s many Revolutionary sites, sparking interest, providing context and encouraging explorations that begin at the Museum’s doorstep. The Museum is a private, non-profit organization. For more information, visit www.AmRevMuseum.org or call toll free, 877-740-1776.