New Member Joins Board of Shaker Museum
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NEW LEBANON, N.Y. — Suzanne Heggie Werner has joined the board of Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon.
Werner moved to Hillsdale, N.Y., in 2016 to raise alpaca at Green River Hollow Farm. She is the owner, along with her husband Robert Werner, of Fluff Alpaca, a shop in Hudson, N.Y., that sells clothing and textiles made from alpaca fiber.
Werner holds a JD from New York University and a BA from Mount Holyoke College. She also attended Tunghai Universtiy in Taichung, Taiwan, where she pursued her study of the Mandarin language. She practiced law and taught English for many years before joining the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001. She worked first in the Office of General Counsel and later served as the Branch Chief of the Chinese language branch of the East Asia Division in the Directorate of Operations.
Two of Werner's aunts were deeply involved with Shaker Seminars, an annual meeting of Shaker scholars and enthusiasts that was particularly popular in the 1970s and 1980s, and continues to this day as a project of Hancock Shaker Village.
"Thanks to my aunts, I was exposed to the history of the Shaker utopian community growing up and own some lovely Shaker items," she said. "As an adult, I continue to appreciate the Shaker principles of gender equality, the importance of communal work, and the beauty of simplicity, all of which have deep relevance in today’s society. I am thrilled to support Shaker Museum | New Lebanon and now sit on their board."
Lacy Schutz, executive director of Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon, said, "Suzanne is joining the board at a particularly exciting moment of transition and momentum for the Shaker Museum, and she joins a group of very engaged and energized trustees who are creating a new future for the organization. I look forward to working with her."
Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon stewards the historic site in New Lebanon, N.Y., which is open year-round for hiking and self-guided tours, and offers tours, exhibitions, and public programs seasonally. The museum also has a campus in Old Chatham, N.Y., open year-round by appointment, where the administrative offices, collections, library, and archives are housed. The museum’s collection of over 56,000 Shaker items is the most comprehensive collection of its kind in the world.
