Timothy E. Harrison

Tim Harrison, of East Machias, Maine, is cofounder of Lighthouse Depot, editor and founder of Lighthouse Digest Magazine, coauthor of five lighthouse books, and past president of the non-profit American Lighthouse Foundation from 1994 - 2007.

In 2004 Harrison retired from the day-to-day activities of Lighthouse Depot to enable himself to devote more time to Lighthouse Digest magazine and the Friends of Little River Lighthouse in Cutler, Maine.

IN 1994 Harrison co-founded and served as president of the American Lighthouse Foundation, a non-profit, national, all volunteer preservation group that has helped save lighthouses all around the nation. Under Harrison's leadership the American Lighthouse Foundation became the first non-profit in all of New England to obtain ownership of a Maine lighthouse under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act.

Harrison founded the Museum of Lighthouse History, which had on display, some of the most rare items left in existence from the days of the U.S. Lighthouse Service. Many of the items on display were donated from his personal collection. The collectin was recently merged into the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland, Maine, which is now changing its name to America's Lighthouse Museum.

Harrison retired from the American Lighthouse Foundation in December 2007.

Harrison has coauthored a number of lighthouse books, including the best selling books, Lost Lighthouses and the Golden Age of American Lighthouses as well as Endangered Lighthouses.

He is an active preservationist and has appeared in numerous radio and television interviews. Harrison has written hundreds of articles about lighthouses and has one of the largest collections of vintage lighthouse photographs in the country. He has given over 300 lectures on the need to save our nations lighthouses and their history. Several years ago he completed the film, 'Lighthouses of Maine, A Journey Through Time,' which aired on PBS-TV.

Harrison says his biggest concern now is that time is running out to locate and save the lighthouse memories and photographs of the few surviving children of the lighthouse keepers who served under the United States Lighthouse Service, which was dissolved in 1939 when it merged into the Coast Guard.

In August of 2005, Rear Admiral David Pekoske, USCG, personally honored Harrison with the medal for Homeland Security's United States Coast Guard Meritorious Public Service Award, which is one of the highest awards given by the United States Government to a civilian.

Harrison is widely respected as a nationwide leader in preserving America's lighthouses and the history associated with them.