24 May An evening celebrating Paul McDonough’s 45 years with HBI
On May 22nd, HBI honored long-serving board member Paul McDonough, with a special reception to celebrate his 45 years of service on HBI’s Board of Directors. More than 50 of Paul’s friends and fellow board members gathered to tell stories and raise a glass to Paul’s many years of work on behalf of preservation.
“Paul, we can’t underestimate the value of the important leadership you have brought to the success of Historic Boston over 45 years,” said HBI President Mike Durand. “Board membership may be a quiet undertaking, but it is vitally important to a healthy and thriving non-profit mission. You modeled this for us.”
Paul also served as HBI’s President for 25 years, ceding his seat to Matthew Kiefer in 2003. “Paul,” said Kiefer in tribute to McDonough, “You set the standard, and in my first few meetings as chair, I made sure to have view of you at the board table, so I could tell if I was okay.”
Echoes of Paul’s influence at Historic Boston are present throughout the City, having aided HBI endeavors at the Hurd and Austin Houses in Charlestown, Alvah Kittredge House in Roxbury, and the Hayden Building in Chinatown. As an attorney for many years in Boston, Paul’s practice involved broad-based real estate financing and development work involving multi-use real estate development projects, extensive historic preservation and rehabilitation projects, and joint ventures representing foreign and domestic investors, pension funds, REITs, and developers. 
He has also served on the board of the USS Constitution Museum, the Dimock Community Health Center, the North Bennet Street School, Zoo New England, Inc., Preservation Action, Inc., Friends of Boston’s Homeless, and the Charlestown Boys and Girls Club. He served on the Executive Committee of the Trust for City Hall Plaza, and was a council member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Paul is also the past president of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now Historic New England) and the National Center for Preservation Law.
In his remarks at the reception, HBI President Mike Durand made sure to note “Lest anyone think this is a going away party for Paul, let me tell you that this afternoon we re-elected him to another 3-year term.”
HBI congratulates Paul, and we look forward to three more years of his service.
Photography by Flavio Debarros.