Shirl Spicer, Countywide Museum Manager
Cultural Resources Stewardship Section / Park Planning & Stewardship Division
M-NCPPC, Department of Parks, Montgomery County
Shirl Spicer is the countywide museum manager for the Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), Department of Parks, Montgomery County. With over 25 years’ experience working in museum education, she manages the interpretive programming staff for each of Montgomery Parks’ historic sites; among those are Oakley Cabin African American Museum & Park, Kingsley Schoolhouse, the Underground Railroad Experience Trail hikes and Woodlawn Museum at Woodlawn Manor Cultural Park, and the new Josiah Henson Museum & Park coming online in late 2020.
A native of North Carolina, Ms. Spicer previously served as the curator for community history for the North Carolina Museum of History, and as education director and registrar of the Museum of the Albemarle (the Museum of History’s northeastern regional branch). Her career began in museum education at the Greensboro Historical Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina; then continued at The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia; and, the former Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.
Ms. Spicer is a graduate of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, with a Bachelor of Arts in History, and a graduate of Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia with a Master of Museum Studies.
Shirl is actively involved in the national arena of museum professional organizations; having served on the boards of the Association of African American Museums (Secretary for the Board of Directors; 2005 – 2010) and the American Association for State and Local History.
Shirl currently serves AAAM as Nominating Chair on the Governance Committee.