Larry Coben

Lawrence S. "Larry" Coben (born 1958) is an archaeologist who founded the Sustainable Preservation Initiative. He serves as Chairman of the Board of NRG Energy

Coben is a consulting scholar and archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the founder and Executive Director of the Sustainable Preservation Initiative . His most recent work focuses on Inca imperial strategy and the archaeology of performance. He directs a multidisciplinary archaeological project in the Canete Valley of Peru and was director of a project at the monumental site of Incallajta in Bolivia. With Takeshi Inomata, he co-authored the book Archaeology of Performance: Theater, Power and Community. Richard Schechner described this work as "an important work integrating performance theory, forensics, and classical archaeology to describe and analyze not a “dead past” but pasts that continue to operate as rich repositories of living behaviors." Coben has published articles on the Inca, archaeological site museums, and the role of performance and spectacle in ancient society. Coben recently delivered a TED talk about SPI entitled "Build Futures, Save Pasts".

He also runs the aforementioned Sustainable Preservation Initiative ("SPI). SPI preserves the world's cultural heritage by providing sustainable economic opportunities to poor communities where endangered archaeological sites are located. SPI believes the best way to preserve cultural heritage is creating or supporting locally owned businesses whose success is tied to that preservation. SPI’s grants provide a TWO for ONE benefit: they provide transformative economic opportunities for local residents while saving sites for future generations to study and enjoy. SPI's paradigm, designed by Coben, has been suggested by the Milken Institute as an optimal solution to preserve and develop Israel's cultural heritage

...
Wikipedia