The Conserv team is growing — and so is what we offer the field. We’re thrilled to introduce Christopher Cameron, our new Director of Conserv Services who starts next month. Chris brings more than 13 years of experience working alongside cultural heritage institutions on collection environments, mechanical systems, and sustainability — having worked with more than 80 museums, libraries, archives, and historic properties. He most recently ran Sustainable Heritage, his own collection environment consultancy, and before that spent nine years as a Sustainable Preservation Specialist at the Image Permanence Institute (IPI) at RIT, where he contributed to IPI’s Methodology for Implementing Sustainable Energy-Saving Strategies for Collections Environments — a landmark resource for the field. A Certified Project Manager and HVAC specialist, Chris is also the recipient of the 2021 Rebecca Johnson Sustainability Champion Award from RIT. Outside of work, you can find him in his wood shop, restoring his 170-year-old house, or training in mixed martial arts. We sat down with Chris to hear about his ambitious goals for joining Conserv!
What is your role on the Conserv team?
I’m the Director of Conserv Services, which means I’m launching building assessment and collection environment services as a new arm of what Conserv offers. That covers mechanical system evaluations, preservation commissioning for new installs, environmental data analysis, and helping institutions figure out how to run their systems more efficiently without compromising their collections.
The goal is to help cultural heritage organizations not just collect data, but understand it well enough to make real decisions. What should my space look like? How do I use the data I’ve already collected to evaluate whether my mechanical system needs to change? How do I run my existing system better and more efficiently? Those are the kinds of questions I’ll be helping institutions answer — now with Conserv’s platform and team behind me.
What drew you to joining Conserv after running your own practice?
Together, we can do so much more for the field than I could do on my own. The combination of what I bring with what Conserv has already built — the platform, the team, the network — creates something that can help institutions at a scale that wasn’t possible before.
What I’ve always admired about Conserv is how responsive they are. When the field needs something, they move. I’ve seen other organizations hold onto the same tools and approaches for years while institutions’ needs shifted around them. Conserv builds software that adapts for what the market actually needs. That makes a real difference when you’re trying to give institutions advice that sticks.
What building assessment and collection environment services is Conserv launching?
People don’t know how to use their data. I’ve seen this everywhere. Institutions are collecting environmental data, but they’re not always sure what to do with it. It’s not always clear what it means, what questions to ask, and what it’s telling them about their mechanical systems or their collection spaces.
What I’m excited to bring to Conserv is the ability to sit with someone and work through their data with them. Once someone starts to understand their data, everything else follows. Sometimes it takes two or three sessions before they start to see what’s right in front of them and then they’re ready to make real changes.
We’ll also be launching in-person assessments. Even a brand new building isn’t perfect. I’ve seen buildings a year or two old with major inefficiencies built right in. A building assessment brings a fresh set of eyes: we look at your mechanical system, your collection spaces, how you’re operating everything. We identify ways to run the system better and more efficiently. Combined with Conserv’s platform, we’re not just pointing out problems, we’re helping you build an ongoing picture of how your building is performing.
Where do you see Conserv going in the future?
There’s an opportunity to pick up something the field started but couldn’t finish. At IPI, I was part of developing the Methodology for Implementing Sustainable Energy-Saving Strategies for Collections Environments — work I’m genuinely proud of, and that I think the field needed. We were just beginning to get workshops off the ground when COVID shut everything down.
I think there’s a real opportunity now to revive and expand on that work — to bring facilities managers and preservation professionals together in ways they haven’t been before. Education, workshops, shared training, the kind of deep collaboration that helps institutions think about collection care and building operations as one integrated problem rather than two separate ones.
And as Conserv continues to develop new tools to support energy efficiency goals, the combination of those capabilities with on-the-ground services work creates something entirely new for the field. I’m excited to help build it.
You can find Christopher on LinkedIn. Have questions about what Conserv Services could do for your institution? Reach out to us — we’d love to talk.
