Jonn Hankins is the Founder and CEO of the New Orleans Master Crafts Guild. He previously held the positions of Executive Director of the New Orleans African American Museum, Development Director of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival Foundation, and Principal Development Officer for Corporate and Community Affairs at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA). At NOMA, he directed, “Raised to the Trade: Creole Building Arts of New Orleans,” an award winning exhibition and oral history research project that documented two centuries of families of master craftsmen who built and still maintain New Orleans’ unique architecture. Mr. Hankins has advocated for and lectured to apprentice trainees on the need to revive traditional building trade skills in a post-Katrina New Orleans beset by what has been described as “a lack of traditional building skills in the local population and a low quality of rebuilding that threatened New Orleans’ character” by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales Foundation for Building Community.