Chet Orloff

Chet Orloff is currently an adjunct professor of Urban Studies and Planning and a Community Scholar at Portland State University, as well as a correspondent for the Oregonian newspaper. Executive Director of the Oregon Historical Society until January 2001 and now the Society's Director Emeritus, Chet is an authority on Oregon's history as well as on historical agency management. He has recently been appointed to a committee of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History to develop the strategic plan and architectural renovation of the Museum. Chet earned his BS from Boston University and the University of Oregon in western archaeology and history (1971) and an MA in Pacific Northwest history and public history from Portland State (1980). He is a member of Phi Alpha Theta (International Honor Society in History). Before embarking on his professional career, Chet spent 1972-75 in Afganistan as a Peace Corps teacher. Following this, he became Development Director and Assistant Director of the Oregon Historical Society. Chet was the founding director of the Ninth Circuit Historical Society, established to develop the history of the law in the West, and created & edited its journal, Western Legal History, from 1986 to 1992. Chet has authored two books: Oregon's Archival Heritage and (with Norma Gleason) Portland's Public Art: A Guide and History. He is a member (and past president) of the National Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Council and a board member of the Oregon State Capitol Foundation and Lewis & Clark 2005, Inc.