Officers
Peter Vaselopulos, President
Peter is currently the Vice President of the Arlington Historical Society. He is retired from the federal government as Deputy Chief Information Officer at the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). He served 35 years at USAGM where he worked as a broadcast journalist, international television producer, and new media and information technology specialist. He is also a board member of the Alliance to Preserve the Civil War Defenses of Washington, D.C. and was a member of Arlington County’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee. Peter has a master’s certificate in Digital Public Humanities from George Mason University. He is also a graduate of George Washington University and American University, with master’s degrees in Managing Information Systems and International Communications. He teaches history and digital storytelling courses for Arlington’s Encore adult education program. Peter is an Arlington County Historic Preservation grantee, launching a digital media project called “Arlington Historical,” which includes a website and mobile app. Peter and his wife, Virginie, are 45-year residents of Arlington County.
Sean Denniston, Vice President
Sean has been researching 1920s Arlington and wrote the definitive analysis of the impact of the legal case where Clarendon sought to secede from Arlington County in 1920 which was published in the Arlington Historical Magazine. He is expanding his 1920s research to include the old Jefferson District and Town of Potomac, both annexed by Alexandria. He enjoys speaking to anyone with pictures, memories, or artifacts. He is co-chair of the Preservation and Research Committee (with a particular interest in the former Crystal City Underground) and co-coordinator of Arlington’s USA semiquincentennial (250th) celebrations.Sean has been a Crystal City resident since 2007. He has a bachelor’s degree from Williams College, a master’s degree from Oxford University (both in history), and a law degree from Boston College.
Richard “Rich” Samp, Treasurer
Rich has served as the AHS Treasurer since 2023. An Arlington resident since 1986, Rich has a long-time interest in local history. He has authored several pieces for the Arlington Historical Magazine, including a 2024 article that eulogized local historian Charlie Clark. A 2020 article focused on a legal challenge to a racially segregated Arlington pre-school; that lawsuit led to a 1976 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in private schools. Rich is a semi-retired attorney who specializes in appellate litigation. He currently serves as a member of Arlington’s Electoral Board. His many community activities in Arlington have included service on the Community Services Board and the School Board’s Fiscal Affairs Advisory Committee and Chair of the County’s Substance Abuse Committee.
Harold “Harry” Evans, Secretary
Harry was born in Ashburn, Virginia but was raised in South-Central Pennsylvania. Moving back to Virginity in 2020, he pursued an education in Aviation. He now resides in Springfield where he works as a Production Supervisor at Closet America. Harry has always had an interest history, particularly American history and aviation history. He is a Senior Member of the Civil Air Patrol, an applicant for the Franconia Fire Department, and aids in hosting a book club at the Arlington Courthouse Library. Harry joined AHS to help preserve local history, and to help his wife Dawn Evans, who also volunteers at the Arlington Historical Society. Harold’s hobbies include recreational aviation, sports, target shooting, table top roleplaying Games, creative writing, and DIY engineering projects.”
Members of the Board of Directors
George Axiotis
George has been a member of AHS for nearly 10 years and was a previous Board member. He currently performs maintenance and construction tasks at the Hume School. George has lived in Arlington for over 40 years. After a 34-year Federal career as an engineer for the Department of Defense, he now consults part-time. George is an amateur historian and has written two books on Arlington history. He has lectured at several county venues on key historical events and has been on the County Advisory Board for creating its Capital Improvement Plan. George looks forward to maintaining effective and affordable Arlington historical Museum operations and maintenance as well as artifact presentation platforms.
Bethany Baker, Museum Director
Bethany brings over a decade of experience in museum management, historical preservation, and nonprofit administration. She served as Executive Director of the Friends of Concord Point Lighthouse, where she expanded membership, redesigned the exhibit space, managed collections, led fundraising initiatives—including a long-running personalized brick campaign—and oversaw capital improvements. She also worked with the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, supporting the Director in financial administration, donor engagement, and policy development, and completed a graduate internship at the Pueblo Grande Museum focused on collections management and preservation grant compliance. She has additional museum retail and operations experience from her tenure at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives where she managed the retail store, significantly increasing both sales and visitation. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Art History with a minor in Anthropology from Texas State University, and a professional certificate in Museum Studies from Arizona State University. Her board service includes roles with the Steppingstone Farm Museum, Visit Harford! County Tourism Board, and the Havre de Grace Tourism Advisory Board. Bethany has experience in grant management, educational outreach, gallery and exhibit design, and fostering partnerships with cultural organizations.
Annette Benbow
Annette has served as the Chair of AHS’s Ball-Sellers House Committee since 2012, she currently heads the AHS Events Committee and the AHS social media team. She is also on the Museum Committee, the Collections Committee and is a docent at both the Ball-Sellers House and the Arlington Historical Museum. In 2014, she wrote an article for the Arlington Historical Magazine on the military men who were then listed on Clarendon’s World War I commemorative plaque and later presented it at an AHS monthly event. She has given talks on Arlington historical topics to a wide variety of Arlington audiences. She retired in 2020 after 35 years of service in the Central Intelligence Agency where she was a political and counterintelligence analyst and then managed inspections in the Office of the Inspector General. She lived in Arlington briefly but has worshiped in the county for more than 35 years. She has a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of New Hampshire and a master’s certificate from the University of Maryland in public policy.
Jessica Kaplan
Jessica is a retired archivist and has been a freelance historical researcher for more than 20 years. She serves as editor of the AHS publication, Arlington Historical Magazine and is co-director of the joint AHS and Black Heritage Museum of Arlington project, “Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington.” She is also a Master Gardener and headed up research on methods used by colonial Virginians in their kitchen gardens. This research is being applied to the Ball-Sellers House’s Plot Against Hunger in partnership with the Friends of Urban Agriculture. A longtime resident of Arlington, Jessica has researched and written about Arlington history for the Arlington Historical Magazine, including “The Bottom: An African-American Enclave Rediscovered,” “‘I Was a Union Man:’ James and Lewis Marcey’s Civil War Experience,” and “People of the Book: Jewish Arlington, 1900-1940.”
Andrew “Andy” McLeod
Andy is a 15-year resident of Arlington, longtime Washingtonian, and Connecticut native. He joined AHS to advance public and nonprofit enterprises and causes in democracy defense and civics education, public history and preservation, conservation and the environment, and independent nonprofit journalism. He is a former board member of the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust, Heurich House Museum, Friends of the Museums of Florida History, and Tallahassee Trust for Historic Preservation. He is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, American Friends of Lafayette, and Sons of Union Veterans. He currently volunteer with the National Park Service at Arlington House, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Virginia Civics. He has been press secretary to two US Senators; Director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management; Deputy Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, Andy has masters degrees in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School and in government from Georgetown’s National Security Program. He also has a bachelor’s degree in history from George Washington University.
Annette Scherber
Annette is a historian and archivist and has a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of Northern Iowa and a Master of Arts in public history from Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, where she specialized in environmental and women’s history. She has worked for a variety of federal, state, and local government, non-profit, and corporate libraries, archives, museums, and historical institutions. She is a docent at both the Arlington Historical Museum and the Ball-Sellers House, conducted research for the Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington project, and chairs the Membership committee and serves on the Museum and Collections committees. In 2021, she wrote an article about the desegregation of Arlington’s parks for the Arlington Historical Magazine. An Iowa native, Annette moved to Arlington from the Midwest in 2019 and currently lives in Washington, D.C.
Martin “Marty” Suydam
Marty is a long-time resident of Arlington. Now retired, he has had careers in government (Army, Defense, and Navy), industry (General Dynamics, ALCOA, JJMA, BMY, and Burke Industries), consulting (FOCUS Consulting and FOCUS Marketing), and teaching (Colorado School of Mines, George Mason University, Washington College, and Marymount University). He teaches several courses for the Arlington County Encore Learning including “Writing a Memoir,” Walk Four Mile Run,” and “Walks with Charley.” His published books on Arlington history are: “Walks with Charley,” and “Walk Four Mile Run,” In 2016, he penned an article for the Arlington Historical Magazine titled “From Trolley Park to Sewage Treatment: Luna Park.” He spoke to an AHS public event in 2021 about The Frazer family of Green Valley and The Rambler in 2024.
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