Daan is originally from the Netherlands, and the entrance into college for certain degrees is done by a lottery system. This was the case for the career he wanted to go into, which was to be a doctor. He lost. Come July, Daan needed to figure out what to go to school for and wasn’t sure. His mom reminded him that he used to love dinos, so he looked into paleontology. However, in the Netherlands, paleontology is a specialized field that you get into after three years of geology, which didn’t seem a great idea at the time. So, he looked at the closest field and applied for the archaeology program on a whim and got in! He really enjoyed it, so decided to stick it out. After college, Daan started work in CRM. While working on an excavation in Germany, Daan met his future wife. When she went to grad school in Madison, WI, he tagged along (which we are glad he did). He started working for Metcalf in 2016 and the rest is history!
The coolest project Daan has ever worked on was profiling a dike that had a sluice gate installed (pictures below). The project involved excavating down to the original dike, because pretty much all sea dikes are still in their original location and the Dutch just built on top of them over time. In the 7th century, the Netherlands started building dikes to deal with the rising sea levels and prevent as much flooding as possible. The original dikes were built using wooden posts and putting rock and debris between them. This was the technique used until about the 17th century when a wood eating parasite, the naval shipworm, made its way to the county. During the profiling and excavation some historics were found, such as glass and metal pieces. But the coolest part was seeing the changes in technology used to build the dikes. To make it even more Netherlandish, there was a windmill that was in the background of the dike!
Outside of work, Daan enjoys going to fun bars and restaurants, hiking in the mountains, and rock climbing with Clive. He also loves playing board games and watching football. Go Pack (his words)! He is also very good at setting up rigged fantasy leagues (my words). Daan is a very talented photographer and loves photographing landscapes. He has a cat named Polly.
A fun fact about Daan is that he has a twin sister named Janske who still lives in the Netherlands.
If you are interested in joining the Metcalf team, please visit our careers page for a list of current job openings.
