Meet July’s Employee Spotlight, Liz France! Liz has been a part of the Metcalf family since 2008. She has worked in places such as Belize and Mexico. In her spare time, she loves to play Dungeons & Dragons, create soap, do oil paintings, and paint D&D miniatures, and enjoys reading, cooking, baking, and random travel.
1. What made you interested in CRM?
I have always had a fascination with history. I want to know the who, how, and why of it all. I remember being like 6 and having discussions about history with family and friends, asking why there were ruins, who built them, where did they go etc. We had a world history atlas, and I would lay on the floor, look through it and make up stories about the people and the ruins. My first fascination was with the ancient Greeks, especially the myths and ruins. Then I discovered the Minoans and I wanted to go to Crete and see the palace of Knossos (still on the bucket list!).
I did my first field school when I was 17. It was supposed to involve excavating a Seneca
longhouse, but the project was changed to historic mill foundations on the Irondequoit Creek in Rochester NY. Naturally I fell in love with the fieldwork, though the field director himself wasawful. Life got in the way and I didn’t pursue archaeology right out of high school. I was a Certified Nurse’s Aide for over 2.5 years until I was badly injured. I worked retail at various stores eventually working as a Manager for an engraving store in a mall. I was going to schoolpart-time in Arizona, at the time and in 1998 I did a field school in Cortez, CO. This revived my love of archaeology and led to my going back to school full-time in 2000. I then spent the next eight years getting my Associates, Bachelors, and Masters’ degrees, while working in New York and Vermont for a CRM firm and in Belize and Mexico with the professor who would become my graduate advisor. I really enjoy testing and excavations and absolutely love lab work, especially shell and lithic analysis. My passion has been looking at an artifact and trying to figure out the process of how someone made it. It’s like solving little mysteries.
On the day after I graduated with my Masters’ I put out 34 applications across the entire county. Metcalf called the next day and after answering two simple questions from Ed, I was hired. I started out doing fieldwork, and spending a ton of time in Malta, Montana, and Bowman, North Dakota. Shout out to Garrett Williams who worked with me during that time as I tried to figure out how it all worked. After yet another injury, I ended up working in the office and learning to do GIS and office management, and while I get to go out now and then, I pretty much live in my office now.
2. What do you like to do outside of work?
I play D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) once a week with a group of friends, where I am the DM (dungeon master) and I run the game. I have an artsy side where I make soap, do oil paintings, and paint D&D miniatures. I also enjoy reading, cooking, baking, and random travel. I really loveto hop in my car on Saturdays and drive around to see where I end up. I do attempt gardening, but not very well.
3. What is a fun fact about you?
My family and I were always building something. One of my earliest memories of construction was when my parents were remodeling our house when I was 6. I remember jumping through the hole in the house where the kitchen wall had been into a big pile of leaves. When I was 15 we tore down an old two bedroom summer cottage on Silver Lake in NY, and built a five bedroom, two story log cabin from scratch. When I was 18 we converted a garage into a two bedroom apartment that a friend of mine and I lived in during our first failed year of college. I’ve helped the family build numerous sheds and helped with remodeling several houses, including my own. Renovation and construction are still a part of my daily life. I’ve been told that know as much about building as a baker knows about baking.
If you are interested in joining the Metcalf team, please visit our careers page for a list of current job openings.
