My passion for archaeology began at 16 when I signed up for a semester-long archaeology class where we learned a few basics in the classroom, but hands-on learning was the focus. I went to an alternative high school based primarily on experiential education and our class volunteered every Friday at the Magic Mountain Site (5JF.223) in Golden, CO. Not sure how this happened, but my time there did not overlap with Cody’s somehow. After a class trip later that spring to Chaco Canyon, I gained a broader understanding of the antiquity and relevance of past cultures and my mind was completely blown. Following high school, I spent a year at Colorado Mountain College where I spent one semester in a program out of Leadville traveling the southwest and Mexico. During that semester, an intro to archaeology class took place in its entirety in Grand Gulch, Utah and I became pretty convinced that archaeology would be a good career path.
I moved on to finish up my BA at Fort Lewis College in Durango and I fell in love with the southwest and Ancestral Puebloan archaeology around the four corners. I first met Cody at Fort Lewis in anthropological theory class, which we both dreaded. After I graduated, I spent the next three years working for the USFS seasonally in Durango while building houses and working for a sustainable logging company during the winters. I moved on to Northern Arizona University for my MA, worked for the NPS at Flagstaff Area National Monuments, and graduated in 2006. At Flag Area Monuments, I worked in the realm of ruins preservation conducting architectural documentation, condition assessments, and stabilization at Wupatki and Walnut Canyon.
In 2007, I moved back to Durango where I commuted to New Mexico to work for the Division of Conservation Archaeology (DCA) at Salmon Ruins. At DCA I roamed the gas patch of Northern New Mexico looking for pit houses and forked stick hogans in the Dinétah. Working in the area was tricky because of the extremely high site density. In 2009, I joined ERO Resources working first in Durango and then in Denver. Over 10 years at ERO, I gained invaluable experience primarily in the mountains and western slope of Colorado and southeast and southwest Utah. I was also able to get back into ruins preservation while teaming with Woods Canyon and Petrographics on two large projects in southeast Utah (2010 and 2016) and was lucky enough to be further trained by Chris Zeller (Petrographics) who was the “master” of stabilization in the four corners area until his recent retirement.
Besides my work life, I’m a father to a lovely little girl named Emery. Outside of work and parenthood, I enjoy backpacking, fly fishing, rock climbing, white water canoeing, backcountry snowboarding, and overall I just enjoy the outdoors; the more remote the better! I’m so eager to get Emery out on many adventures to come.
