Ms. McHale is President & CEO of The L’Enfant Trust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and revitalizing Washington, DC’s neighborhoods. The Trust advances its mission through programs that connect residents to their shared history, protect the city’s architectural heritage, and reactivate neglected properties within their communities.

In this role, Ms. McHale oversees the nation’s largest preservation easement program, which protects more than 1,150 historic buildings throughout the District. She also leads the Trust’s Historic Properties Redevelopment Program (HPRP), the city’s first nonprofit real estate initiative focused exclusively on historic preservation. Recognized with the 2015 State Historic Preservation Officer’s Award for Creating Housing Through Preservation, the program rehabilitates vacant historic buildings and returns them to productive use by providing affordable homeownership opportunities for moderate-income families, including teachers, healthcare workers, and public servants who are often priced out of the District’s housing market.

Ms. McHale holds a B.A. in Art History and Historic Preservation & Community Planning from the College of Charleston and a M.S. in Historic Preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a past Chair of the Preservation Action Foundation, a former board member of the ACE DC Mentor Program, and a past citizen member of the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee of Washington, DC’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6C. She currently serves as President of the Latrobe Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians.