MANALAPAN, NJ – Monmouth County Clerk Christine Giordano Hanlon is pleased to announce that Fred Carl of Ocean Grove is the winner of the M. Claire French Award for 2016. The award will be presented at Monmouth County Archives and History Day on Saturday, Oct. 8 at the Monmouth County Library Headquarters.

“Fred Carl embodies all aspects of the M. Claire French Award through his dedication to preserving Camp Evans and the development of the InfoAge Museum,” said Hanlon. “It is my honor to present the award to such a deserving community leader and educator.”

Fred Carl has dedicated much of his career to preserving and rebuilding important structures of Camp Evans, the former U.S. Army sub-post of Fort Monmouth. Carl is the Chief Operating Officer and Founder of the Information Age (InfoAge) Science History Museum and Learning Center. InfoAge is located at Camp Evans, which is a U.S. Department of Interior National Historic Landmark and is New Jersey’s designated World War II Living Memorial.

Carl was a driving force behind restoring Camp Evans and worked with a team of volunteers to rehabilitate the sub-post by restoring electrical power, sewers, and cleaning up flooded basements and bathrooms.

Thanks to his tireless work, many of the sub-post’s historic sites, such as the Diana Radar Site, have been transformed into museum exhibits. Project Diana was a successful experimental project by the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1946 to bounce radar signals off the moon and receive the reflected signals. It marked the birth of radar astronomy which was later used to map Venus and other nearby planets. Carl’s passion and determination to restore the sub-post resulted in his founding of the InfoAge Museum, which honors the wireless communication and space exploration pioneers during World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. InfoAge welcomes thousands of visitors a year and educates the public about the ground-breaking innovations that took place in Wall Township.

The M. Claire French Award for Leadership in Historic Preservation recognizes outstanding achievements of an elected official, government employee, public servant or civic organization in supporting historic preservation in Monmouth County through education, development, planning, rehabilitation, advocacy, community leadership or other means.

Created in 2015, the award is named after M. Claire French, Hanlon’s predecessor, who was County Clerk from 1997 until her retirement on April 1, 2015. During French’s 18-year tenure, she oversaw the modernization of the Clerk’s Office, including digitizing County records and the electronic reporting of election results, as well as the expansion of the Office’s services with the Monmouth County Connection Office in Neptune Township.

The M. Claire French Award Committee members are Clerk Hanlon, former Clerk M. Claire French, Hon. Robert Clifton of Matawan and Hon. Susan Kiley of Hazlet.

For more information on Archives and History Day, visit the Monmouth County website at www.VisitMonmouth.com/CountyClerk, contact the Monmouth County Archives at 732-308-3771 or email Gary.Saretzky@co.monmouth.nj.us.

 

Phone: 732-431-7324, ext. 8735