Pair grounded in preservation
Couple to seek law curbing Hanscom

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent, 1/23/2003

Commercial aviation at Bedford's Hanscom Field is in a lull these days, with only a few flights a day. But there is no letup in activities of Save Our Heritage, a Concord-based historic preservation group that was formed in 1998 as a nonprofit. It is headed by the husband and wife team of Neil E. Rasmussen and Anna Winter.

Since Shuttle America landed at Hanscom in September 1999, Save Our Heritage has been aggressively opposing commercial flights while pleading the cause of preserving landmarks such as the Minute Man National Historical Park and Walden Pond.

In the process, Rasmussen, who is the group's soft-spoken president, and Winter, its outgoing executive director, have challenged officials of the Massachusetts Port Authority at every turn, contending that commercial aviation and, more recently, corporate jet operations are threats to the area's heritage, in terms of noise, traffic, and environmental hazards.

Now, as Massport prepares a final environmental impact report on Hanscom for 2005 to 2015, Rasmussen, 47, and Winter, 44, are setting their sights farther afield: to Congress, where they'll be lobbying later this year, they say, for a bill that would restrict the number of commercial and corporate jet flights at Hanscom.

They will be citing as precedents two federal laws, passed in 1987 and 2000, that regulate sightseeing flights over the Grand Canyon and national parks.

''Being pro-preservation doesn't mean that we are anti-aviation,'' Winter said. ''[But] we need responsible and enforceable guidelines for Hanscom. And an act of congressional legislation can ensure a constructive relationship for the future.''

Massport, which owns and operates Hanscom, declined to comment on Rasmussen and Winter for this article.

However, Massport's media relations director, Jose Juves, has taken issue with Rasmussen in print. In a letter to the editor appearing in the Nov. 14 issue of the Bedford Minuteman, Juves responded to a letter to the newspaper from Rasmussen criticizing Massport's draft of an environmental impact report on Hanscom.

''Nearly 25 years of public disclosure and environmental analysis exists for virtually every aspect and use of that airport,'' Juves wrote. ''Any claim that Massport has not been honest in its dealings or secretive with the local community is absurd.''

Rasmussen and Winter became immersed in American history while growing up in Sudbury, near the Wayside Inn. ''I was a [historic] tour guide in high school, intrigued by going back in time and learning how the American way of life has evolved,'' Winter said.

She and her husband moved to Concord in 1992, restoring an antique house as they had done previously in Townsend. Eleven years earlier, Rasmussen, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, had been one of the founders of American Power Conversion Corp. He is now a senior vice president and chief technical officer of the West Kingston, R.I.-based company. He works out of a facility in Billerica.

In 1996, he and his wife, an alumna of Sarah Lawrence College, started a group called Concord Citizens Who Love Concord, which began opposing a nascent issue - the resumption of commercial aviation at Hanscom. Before Shuttle America arrived, Mohawk Air flew out of Hanscom from 1988 to 1991.

At 1996 Town Meetings in Concord, Bedford, Lincoln, and Lexington, the communities adjoining the Bedford airfield, voters rejected any expansion at Hanscom. Rasmussen recalled that the vote overcame proponents who had suggested that ''a silent majority'' supported commercial operations at Hanscom.

Then, in 1997, Concord Citizens Who Love Concord and a primarily Lexington organization, People Against Hanscom Expansion, were folded into a new entity, Safeguarding the Historic Hanscom Area's Irreplaceable Resources, or ShhAir. Rasmussen was one of several founders.

ShhAir and Save Our Heritage, formed a year later, have worked well in tandem since then, said Kay Tiffany of Lexington, another ShhAir founder. ''We tend to work at the state and local levels, while Save Our Heritage concentrates on the national level,'' Tiffany noted.

''Neil and Anna have been extremely generous to the four communities - helpful to all of us,'' she added.

One of Winter's major tasks has been lining up respected national figures to serve on Save Our Heritage's advisory board. Its twenty-nine members include household names such as actor Paul Newman and recording artist Don Henley, as well as academicians such as Edward O. Wilson of Lexington and Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at the University of New Orleans.

''I just wrote letters to these individuals, asking them to serve on our board. They didn't know me from Adam,'' Winter said.

Henley, who is also founder of the Walden Woods Project, said, ''Anna and Neil have forged an effective and formidable alliance of historians and environmentalists, citizens and public officials, all committed to protecting the unparalleled historic and natural resources of the greater Concord area.''

Wilson, a professor of biology emeritus at Harvard University and a naturalist, said Save Our Heritage ''is a fine example of citizen involvement for the good of communities. It's just not the rich folks; it's rallying everyone to preserve the history of American culture.''

And by having luminaries on its board, Save Our Heritage has been able to raise between $85,000 and $90,000 a year from donors nationally, Winter said, adding that the money raised covers the overhead of a Concord Center office, legal expenses, and the salary of projects director Marty Pepper Aisenberg, 53, a Worcester native and a lawyer. He is also the group's most visible person, appearing at all meetings of the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission and Hanscom Area Towns Committee.

Although the group has a national focus, it never loses sight of what Massport is doing, Rasmussen and Winter said. ''Massport's not malevolent; it's just plagued by a mindlessness when it come to Hanscom,'' Rasmussen charged.

Winter asserted, ''Massport puts so much spin on things.''

Both said they're preparing to study carefully Massport's final environmental document on Hanscom. Last month, Robert Durand, who was then the state's environmental affairs secretary, approved the preliminary environmental blueprint for the airfield, with the proviso that more attention be paid to noise and traffic mitigation in the final report.

Rasmussen and Winter's monitoring and lobbying efforts concerning Hanscom ''are clearly welcomed by all civic leaders of the four towns,'' said Sheldon Moll, chairman of the towns committee and head of the Bedford Board of Selectmen.

This story ran on page N1 of the Boston Globe on 1/23/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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