Robin Waites

Robin Waites is the Executive Director of Historic Columbia Foundation, where she has been employed since 2002. In this capacity, she has overseen the transformation of an organization once focused primarily on the management of historic house museums to a multi-faceted entity and a leader in preservation advocacy, community development, and local history education. A native of Columbia, Robin is committed to helping the community recognize the value of its rich cultural resources and ensuring that our past and future are successfully intertwined.

A product of Columbia’s Richland School District One, Robin attended Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont where she received a bachelor of arts with a double major in Art History and Russian. She earned a Master of Arts in Art History from the University of South Carolina in 1996 and immediately began work at the South Carolina State Museum, where she served in a variety of capacities including the chief curator of art, a position she held until accepting the directorship at the Historic Columbia Foundation.