Richard T. Gillespie Bio

Rich Gillespie is a New England native who has spent most of his life in Virginia.  Educated at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, his first career was spent as a high school history teacher in Northern Virginia--Mosby country--with an emphasis on using regional and local historic sites to bring his teaching alive. Summers were spent working at historic sites including at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park just 17 miles from his school.

Retiring from the Loudoun County, Virginia Public Schools in 2004, Gillespie went on to his second career first as Director of Education and ultimately as Executive Director of the Mosby Heritage Area Association, dedicated to educating about and preserving the historical landscape of the five counties on either side of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains that constitute the Mosby Heritage Area.

At fifty years in the field, Gillespie recently retired for a second time and now serves as the Historian Emeritus for the Mosby Heritage Area.