Heritage Toronto is pleased to announce the 2009 Heritage Toronto Special Achievement Award Recipient. The award will be presented to heritage advocate Stephen Otto on October 13th.

Stephen Otto is one of the city's most determined advocates for the preservation and promotion of Toronto's built and documentary heritage, which he has fought to have recognized as an integral part of city building. His power to protect the city's soul as a strong voice of the city's conscience also makes him a great urban leader.

Mr. Otto is a graduate in Commerce & Finance from the University of Toronto (1961), in history from Cambridge University (1963), and holds a master's degree in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School (1970). As a consulting historian he has undertaken studies in heritage policy, property development, archives management and corporate history for many major clients including Canada Post, Hiram Walker-Gooderham & Worts, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and the Ontario Jockey Club.

Prior to 1985, Mr. Otto was in the Ontario Public Service. As the founding head of heritage conservation programs in the Ministry of Culture & Recreation from 1975-81, he administered the newly-enacted Ontario Heritage Act and led the development of programs to support architectural conservation, archaeology, museums, historical plaques and publications. As well, he had responsibility for the operation of the historic sites at Old Fort William and Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, and for managing the trust properties owned by the Ontario Heritage Foundation. He had a key role in the acquisition of Spadina House by the City of Toronto, and in preventing the demolition of the Middlesex Courthouse in London, Ontario, for a residential development. From 1981 to 1984, he planned and coordinated the province's bicentennial celebrations. On his personal initiative he persuaded Mr. Eric Horwood to donate a collection of more than 30,000 nineteenth and twentieth-century architectural drawings to the Ontario Archives, the largest gift it had received to that time.

A founder of the Friends of Fort York, Mr. Otto was motivated by his awareness of Fort York's place at the centre of the history and geography of Toronto, and the urgent need for its recognition within Toronto's Official Plan. As a result, the Fort York York National Historic Site (Fort York, Garrison Common and Victoria Memorial Square) is in a much stronger position today, which is especially important for the upcoming commemoration of the bicentennial of the War of 1812. The efforts of Mr. Otto and the other far-sighted founders of the Friends of Fort York, working in close cooperation with the City of Toronto, have ensured that the site has a prominent and vital role to play in the future of the city.

As with his work on Fort York, many of Mr. Otto's other contributions have focused on the public realm-the squares, parks, streets, bridges, cemeteries, markets and public buildings that define people's experiences in Toronto. He has gone to great lengths to ensure that not only are these authentic places protected, but that they're properly understood and that their stories are told. Many of these places have become character defining to Toronto today - the Don Jail, Don Valley Brickworks, Distillery District National Historic Site, Todmorden Mills and St. Lawrence Hall and Market, to name a few.

Mr. Otto is a former director of the Ontario Heritage Foundation and Canadian Association of Professional Heritage Consultants, a member of the Toronto Historical Board, serves the Bata Shoe Museum advisory council, Grange Committee of the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Massey College Architectural Advisory Board. He was founding chair of the Friends of Fort York & Garrison Common, an office he held again more recently until ill health forced him to retire. At present, Mr. Otto sits on the Corporation of Trinity College.

He was presented with the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977, the Toronto Historical Board's Award of Merit in 1988 and 1996, and the Arbor Award for voluntary service by the University of Toronto in 1991.

He is currently preparing a book on Ontario buildings and architecture to 1914 tentatively planned to be published by the University of Toronto Press. This work is supported by the Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, Laidlaw, McLean and Ontario Heritage foundations. His revised edition of Toronto, No Mean City, Eric Arthur's classic work on the city's 19th-century buildings, appeared in 1986. As well, he has produced two smaller books: Maitland: A Very Neat Village Indeed (1985), and Robert Wetherell and Dundurn: An Architect in Early Hamilton (2004).

The Special Achievement Award will be presented at the 35th Annual Heritage Toronto Awards on Tuesday, October 13 at the historic Carlu, in conjunction with the William Kilbourn Memorial Lecture, "The Great Toronto Roast". Tickets will be on sale and other award nominations will be announced very shortly.