By Kevin Diaz

Former Walter Mondale aide Richard Moe announced this afternoon that he plans to retire after 17 years at the helm of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C.

Old time political hands may recall that Moe was a Minnesota DFL party chair in the 1970s (he recruited Roger Moe to run for the Minnesota Senate). He was chief of staff to Mondale in the U.S. Senate, and then a senior staff person for Mondale in the Carter White House.

At the National Trust, Moe has been instrumental in leading the National Trust in many new directions over the past 17 years, aides say. He successfully weaned the Trust off of federal funding in the 1990s, led the fight against a Disney theme park around a Civil War battlefield in Virginia, and was instrumental in the restoration of President Lincoln's Cottage in Washington.

Moe, a Duluth native, has also been outspoken on key historic preservation issues in Minnesota over the years, from the Guthrie Theater to Fort Snelling to the need to preserve Nicollet Island.

Moe, 72, plans to stay on at the National Trust until a successor has been named, probably next spring.