Jerome Badot PC ’18 in Sweet Auburn magazine

Preservation Carpentry graduate Jerome Badot PC ’18 was profiled in Sweet Auburn, the magazine of Mt. Auburn Cemetery, where Jerome currently works. The article explores how Jerome got into preservation work, came to NBSS, and how he now works in a team to care for the Cemetery’s 50,000+ monuments.

View an excerpt of the article below by Andrew Gambardella, Associate Director of Grants & Communications at Mt. Auburn, and read the full article in their digital edition.

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One of six members of Mount Auburn’s Preservation Team, Jerome Badot helps maintain and repair hundreds of monuments each year. I walked with Jerome on a sunny Friday morning in September to learn more about everything he and his team do to preserve Mount Auburn’s monuments and the historic character of the Cemetery.

…From 2016–18, Jerome attended the North Bennet Street School (NBSS)—the first trade school in the country, founded in Boston in 1881—to specialize in preservation carpentry. His class’s final project was to recreate the facade and entryway of the Beacon Hill mansion belonging to John Hancock, Massachusetts’s first governor and iconic signer of the Declaration of Independence, centered around the original door that [was] in storage. (Hancock’s mansion was torn down in 1863, an outrage that is said to have ignited the historic preservation movement in Boston.)

I was curious how Jerome went from carpentry to masonry, which is mostly what he does now at Mount Auburn.

“I was looking for weekend work after my time at NBSS and an opportunity came to me to assist with masonry for incredible sites all around Boston, and I thought, ‘why not give it a shot?’” That opportunity was with the renowned restoration mason, Fabio Bardini of Florentine Renaissance Masonry.

Jerome learned all about stone, lime, mortars, and traditional Italian restoration techniques, and from there he hasn’t looked back. Seeking a more stable work schedule, he joined Mount Auburn’s Preservation team in the spring of 2023. Alongside his teammates Julia, Juan, Julio, Greg, and Gus (no, J and G names are not a prerequisite for employment in Mount Auburn’s Preservation department to my knowledge!), Jerome helps care for the Cemetery’s over 50,000 monuments via a rigid prioritization process.

Read the full article here.