SALEM — After a 14-year hiatus, the Heritage Ohio’s Building Doctor is returning to Salem, It has a new look, new concepts and a new name.

The event is now known as the Preservation Assessment Workshop. In celebration of National Preservation Month, Heritage Ohio –an offshoot of the National Trust for Historic Preservation –has chosen Salem as one of the select communities to host this event in 2025.

In cooperation with the Salem Preservation Society, the City of Salem and its Design Review Board, Downtown Salem Partnership and Salem World Wars Memorial Building Association, Heritage Ohio along with the Salem Preservation Society is hosting the Preservation Assessment Workshop at the Memorial Building on from 6-7:30 p.m.Thursday, May 8

The event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited. Keynote speaker for the night is David R. Mertz, retired director of Belmont College’s Building Preservation/Restoration Program. On Friday, Mertz will conduct on-site building assessments of five sites to evaluate current condition and provide advice to building owners to address current or future trouble spots.

For additional information contact program chairman David K. Schwartz at schwartzda@earthlink.net .

The Belmont Program is seen as a national model for trades-based technical education in historic preservation and has been copied across the country.

Mertz has been an active participant in the development of historic preservation on a local, state and national level. He has served four years as Chair of the National Council for Preservation Education, the consortium of colleges and universities that offer undergraduate and graduate programs in historic preservation; and four years as Chair Emeritus. He has served as a board member and vice-president for both Heritage Ohio and the Ohio Preservation Alliance Ohio — two statewide preservation non-profits. Mertz has served as president and vice-president of the Preservation Trades Network and was awarded their 2014 Askins Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the Preservation Trades.

In 2017 he was honored with the James Marston Fitch Lifetime Achievement Award for his impact on historic preservation education in America by the National Council for Preservation Education. He is a graduate of Kansas State University with a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in architecture and a certificate in Regional & Community Planning. Mertz lectures frequently on building pathology and American architectural history. He now resides in Kent, Ohio, with his wife, Roberta and is a member of the Kent City Council and Citizen Committee on Preservation and Design.