MEET THE NEW CEO
DR. ROB HAVERS The road to Richmond for the American Civil War Museum’s new CEO, Dr. Rob Havers, began in London, wound through Cambridge and Sandhurst, and vaulted the Atlantic to Fulton, Missouri, before leading to Virginia. After a side-trip to Chicago and a disruptive Year of COVID, Havers picks up the ACWM’s leadership reins as this issue goes to press. BY JOHN M. COSKI
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r. Havers’ career has featured a comfortable symbiosis of academic and public history, and has demonstrated consistent success as administrator, fundraiser, and communicator. The seeds for that career were planted long before.
teach today.” Havers earned his B.A. in History and Politics from Queen Mary College, University of London, his M.A. in Later Modern British History from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and his Ph.D. from Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. His academic concentration was in the history of World War II, and his doctoral dissertation and first book were about Japanese prison camps in Southeast Asia.
“I have had an interest in history for as long as I can remember,” Havers explained. “Sharing the interest and passion, as my career path attests, began in the classroom but has morphed into the realm of public history and museums and cultural institutions. To my mind, the opportunities to engage and excite people about history via an historic site or visitor experience is significant.” “The committee was thrilled that Rob was interested in our position,” remarked the ACWM Board of Directors Search Committee Chair Walter S. Robertson III. “We had an outstanding group of candidates, but Rob really stood out as that experienced leader who could take us to a new level and build on the outstanding jobs of his predecessors. Rob has a love for and dedication to history and what it can
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“I have had an interest in history
for as long as I can remember . . . Sharing the interest and passion, as my career path attests, began in the classroom but has morphed into the realm of public history and museums and cultural institutions.”
After several years teaching military and international history at Cambridge, The London School of Economics and Political Science, and the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, Dr. Havers received a Fulbright Award as a Visiting Professor of British History at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. It was there, of course, that Winston Churchill delivered his “Iron Curtain” address in 1946. Appropriately, it was the man who personified Britain in World War II and who was the son of an American mother who led Dr. Havers across the
