CAMBRIDGE, MA, March 04, 2020 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Ronald Lee Fleming with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Mr. Fleming celebrates many years' experience in his profession and circle of colleagues and associates in the arts, architecture, urban design, and preservation fields. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Ronald Lee Fleming is celebrating a fifty year career as an urban planner, author, preservationist, and thought leading advocate. He was an innovator in Main Street revitalization before there was a national Main Street Movement. His multidisciplinary work on place making involved artists and artisans before this word came into the lexicon of planning RFPs. He is an author and co-author of nine books. An advocate of world heritage conservation, he was the first to raise the issue of corporate franchise branding at successive international conferences of the International Committee of Monuments and Sites. His larger concern has been the character of place, and his early books on proprietorship garnered a nomination from the then director of the Massachusetts Historical Society for a Pulitzer Prize. More recently, he has been honored with the designation of Fellow from US/ICOMOS and the American Institute of Certified Planners. In November of 2019, he received a lifetime achievement award from the New England Society of New York at a dinner dance in his honor, and another from the French Heritage Society in Palm Beach. He has been the first and founding chairman of the (municipal) Cambridge Arts Council, a trustee of Historic New England, the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Governors appointee to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and a State Department grantee lecturing in Paris, Strasbourg, and Iceland, and won two traveling fellowships to Japan.
He graduated cum laude from Pomona College in 1963, and from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1967.
He served in Vietnam as an intelligence officer assigned to the Fifth Special Forces Group in Nha Trang, and later was attached to the Joint United States Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO) in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. He was honorably discharged as a Captain, 1966-1968.
He worked as an analyst for Marshall Kaplan, Gans, and Kahn, before embarking on main street projects around New England. He founded the public interest planning organization, The Townscape Institute, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which he still directs and is completing a book, The Adventures of a Narrative Gardener, which describes his life through the lens of twelve gardens at Bellevue House in Newport, Rhode Island.
In 2019, Mr. Fleming started a training program with colleague Jeff Soule for planners from the 100 most scenic/historic cities and towns who face pressure from developer dominated planning boards. Akin to the Mayors' Institute funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which helps mayors understand the impact they can make when assisted by urban design professionals, the clinic is now in its second year of summer operations. Located at historic Bellevue House in Newport, Rhode Island, where three and one half acres of gardens are now a regional attraction, this clinic is supported by a 6000-volume library with concentrations in urban history, architectural styles, horticulture, urban design, and preservation. His most recent book was The Art of Placemaking: Interpreting Community Through Public Art and Urban Design (2007). In 2018, along with his daughter Severine, Partners for Livable Communities in Washington D.C. declared Mr. Fleming one of sixteen leaders and pioneers in sustainable and equitable place design.
Mr. Fleming is a member of the following clubs: Century Association, Grolier Club, Knickerbocker Club, The Newport Reading Room, Spouting Rock Beach Association, The Somerset Club, The Tavern Club, The Union Boat Club, Harvard Club of Boston, Singing Beach, Society of Colonial Wars, Society of the Cincinnati, The Order of Saint John (a British royal order of chivalry).
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Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America®, Marquis Who's Who® has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who's Who in America® remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. Marquis® now publishes many Who's Who titles, including Who's Who in America®, Who's Who in the World®, Who's Who in American Law®, Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare®, Who's Who in Science and Engineering®, and Who's Who in Asia®. Marquis® publications may be visited at the official Marquis Who's Who® website at www.marquiswhoswho.com.
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