The Henry Ford Heritage Association (HFHA) presented Michigan Technological University with the Friends of Ford Award for 2026 at its annual dinner on July 30 at the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan.
This award recognizes outstanding contributions to the preservation and interpretation of the Henry Ford story and Ford historical landmarks. Michigan Tech was selected for their outstanding stewardship of Henry Ford’s Alberta Sawmill and Village. For over seven decades, Michigan Tech has kept Henry Ford’s dream of the ideal village alive, not only preserving what HFHA calls “The Jewel of Ford’s Northern Michigan’s Operations” intact for the public to enjoy, but also using it for education, research, and opening it to the community in a number of ways including Alberta Fest every June.
Accepting the award from the president of the HFHA, Todd Bryan (a 1985 Michigan Tech alumnus), was Michigan Tech’s Vice President of Community Engagement Wayne Gersie.
“We are deeply grateful to the Henry Ford Heritage Association for this recognition and, even more importantly, for the privilege Michigan Tech has had for more than seven decades to serve as stewards of this remarkable part of Henry Ford’s legacy,” said Gersie. “Alberta is more than a historic place to our Michigan Tech community. It serves as a living laboratory where we honor Ford’s vision by continuing to educate, innovate, and imagine how this special place can once again serve as a model for rural communities in the 21st century.”
The timing of the award coincides with recent renovations to the sawmill thanks to donations from the John and Melissa Besse Foundation and Louisiana Pacific Corporation/Sagola. Michigan Tech has also partnered with the Baraga County Historical Society on preservation of the Alberta site, which is located 10 miles south of L’Anse.
Other recent work has been done to improve and expand the Danis Conference Center thanks to philanthropy from Stephen Danis ’53. Future plans for the Ford Center are in the works.
“The Ford Center and the Danis Conference Center is becoming a nationally known gathering site for convenings focused on the forest sector,” said David Flaspohler, Dean of the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. “Just this summer, we have hosted national workshops on silviculture, a regional forest forum on connecting researchers with managers, and ForestsNext50, a gathering of forest leaders from federal agencies, foundations, and tribal communities.
“We will soon launch an ambitious capital campaign that will take the forward-looking vision of Henry Ford and reinvigorate it as a center for natural resource education and research to support forest-reliant communities in Michigan and beyond.”
To learn more about how to support the work at Alberta, contact Flaspohler (djflaspo@mtu.edu | 906-370-1122) or Bryant Weathers (weathers@mtu.edu | 906-487-2937), executive director of gift planning.
Michigan Technological University is an R1 public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, and is home to nearly 7,500 students from more than 60 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan's flagship technological university offers more than 185 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, computing, forestry, business, health professions, robotics, psychology, social sciences, humanities, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.
