< Mark A. Snell, Director

Mark came to the Center in November 1993 soon after his retirement from the United States Army. H6e has a B.A. from York College of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in American history from Rutgers, and the Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Mark is a former assistant professor at the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY. As professor of history at Shepherd University, he teaches several courses on different aspects of the Civil War, the two-semester US history survey, and courses on World War I and World War II.  Mark also chairs the “Civil War and 19th Century America” concentration and the “Public History” concentration within the history major.  He has written or edited several books on the Civil War, including From First to Last, The Life of Major General William B. Franklin (Fordham Univ. Press, 2002), and West Virginia and the Civil War: Mountaineers Are Always Free (The History Press, 2011). He also edited and contributed to an anthology about the US involvement in World War I titled Unknown Soldiers: The American Expeditionary Forces in Memory and Remembrance (Kent State University Press, 2008).  In February 2009 he was given the "Honorary West Virginian Award" by Governor Joe Manchin, the highest award the governor can bestow on someone who is not a West Virginia citizen.

During the fall semester of 2008, Mark served as Visiting Senior Lecturer of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy (Sandhurst) in the United Kingdom, where he taught courses on the theory of war, the history of insurgency/counterinsurgency warfare, military leadership from a historical perspective, and expeditionary operations. In addition, he helped to lead "Operation Normandy Scholar," when British cadets travel to the battlefields of Normandy for a combined staff ride and tactical exercise.

Two of Mark’s great-great grandfathers served in the 87th Pennsylvania Infantry during the Civil War, his grandfather was in the US Army Air Service in World War I, and his father fought in World War II as a member of the US Army’s 215th Field Artillery Battalion in the European Theater of Operations.

E-mail: msnell@shepherd.edu

Denise E. Messinger, Assistant to the Director >

Denise joined the staff of the George Tyler Moore Center in the fall of 2000. Before transferring to the Center, she worked in the Department of Administration and Finance at Shepherd University. Denise graduated from the University of North Carolina at Asheville in 1998, where she earned a bachelor's degree in history. A native of Adams County, Pennsylvania, she now resides in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania.

At the Center, her responsibilities include coordinating plans for the annual Civil War seminar, held in late June each year.  These seminars have begun to be held off-site, an exciting development in the Center’s mission of outreach to the public.  Denise also plays a large part in the logistics for organizing and awarding the Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship.  In summary, she oversees the many day-to-day administrative details at the Center.  E-mail: dmessing@shepherd.edu

< Thomas E. White, Research Associate/Historical Records Specialist

Tom earned degrees from Montana State University (BS'59 -General Studies, MS'63 - American History). He retired from the National Park Service in 1997, after 34+ years service. Some of his NPS assignments included Park Historian, Manassas NBP, VA (64-66); Supervisory Historian, Fort Laramie NHS, WY (68-72); and Interpretive Planner at Harpers Ferry Center, WV (87-97). Tom's side interest is working on his family genealogy and researching the Civil War records of three great-grandfathers who were Union army veterans. He joined the staff of the George Tyler Moore Center in October 1998.

At the Center, his responsibilities include:  maintaining the Center’s extensive reference library resources of books, periodicals and microfilms; assisting students and other researchers in using our library resources; assuring the content and accuracy of the searchable databases of the common soldiers of West Virginia during the Civil War – which now consists of over 19,000 soldiers in 14 regiments and burials of West Virginia soldiers at seven national cemeteries;  and  providing the Center’s primary, front line public contact services, whether by telephone or in person.

Over the past twelve years on the Center staff, Tom has completed the databases for three West Virginia regiments and the West Virginia soldier burials at five national cemeteries.  He was also the primary preparer of the content of Mountaineers of the Blue and Gray — the Center’s new, interactive, multimedia CD, which strongly emphasizes the common soldier of the Civil War. This CD, which is over 1000 pages long, is essentially a special topic, visual encyclopedia focused on the Civil War and West Virginia.  In addition to researching and preparing information about Civil War personalities, military units, places, events, battles, campaigns, emblems, and music, he prepared over 150 new maps and 13 site-specific video vignettes.

E-mail: twhite@shepherd.edu

Albert J. Pejack, Jr., Database Administrator/Programmer>

A graduate of Westminster College, PA with a B.S. in economics and Clemson University, SC, with an M.S. in management, Al was a professor of computer studies at several colleges and universities before coming to Shepherd University in 1988. Since February 1995, "Uncle Al" has been working at the George Tyler Moore Center developing and managing the Center's database, as well as working on other software projects. He is a veteran of the US Air Force.