 So first of all, I wondered if we could talk about your kind of background in arts and sculpture and how your interest in art came about. I had always been artistically inclined from the time that I was very small. And I had an early love of comic books that facilitated my interest in graphic representation. So I would copy comic book pages and draw my own superheroes and make my own stuff up. And that kindled my interest in drawing profoundly, which contained out my childhood and into my teen years. And in high school, I became much more interested in fine art. I saw a very romanticized portrayal of Vincent van Gogh starring Kirk Douglas called Lust for Life. While I was at a summer program for art at a university campus. And when I was 17, and from that point on, I just wanted to become a fine art painter. But when I got to college, the painting department was less than stellar. This was at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Okay. So I saw the sculpture department producing some pretty interesting things. So I switched my major to sculpture and still vacillated throughout my time at college because I did switch back to, I switched to illustration for a semester, but then I switched back to sculpture again, semester or a whole year, I forget. I continued my sculpture studies in graduate school. During college and graduate school, I met a Russian, a Ukrainian born professor trained at a Russian Academy. His name was Leonid Lerman. And he was like my Obi-Wan. He sculpted better than anyone I ever met, drew better than anyone I ever met, had a completely different philosophy about sculpting and drawing than anything I ever encountered in college or grad school in New York. So part of my reason for wanting to go study grad school in New York was so I could be closer to him because he was in New York. So the whole time I was in grad school, I was taking classes with him and even afterwards. And eventually I decided to go study where he studied, which was at Russia's leading sculpture and monumental sculpture academy. It was called the Mukina Institute. At the time, its name has since changed. And I went there for two years. And then that was pretty much, I got married there, I had a child there when we came home after two years. And that's when I started my professional career. Wow, okay. So you kind of, you really went for it in terms of getting the training and the background. Yeah, I was in school for 10 years, yeah. Wow, okay. So during that time, did you learn anything about coin engraving or numismatic art? Well, while I was in Russia, that's where I was really, truly introduced to the prop way of sculpting relief. And I held up, we had a sculpting, like a piece of plywood, like a board. And I was doing a metal design. And as an example, I stuck a quarter, just a regular George Washington quarter, Flanagan Quarter, averse, board. So I could see it as a guide. My Russian teacher, Svetlana Sergeyevna, who's since passed away, came up to me, picked the quarter off my board and showed it to the entire class and said, this is what good relief is. Look at this coin. This is how you do relief. And that really excited me. And when I was in college, being in, going to college in Philadelphia, getting a job at the Mint was like this, kind of like apocryphal mythical thing. Yeah. The former chief engraver, Frank Disparo was from Philadelphia and he did the reverse of the penny. And it was, I hate to use the word twice, but it was like, there was this mystic, mysterious legendary status about the Mint. So when I was in school, basically, there were just a handful of places you figured you could get a starting job as a sculptor. It was either the Mint, but that seemed impossible. There's a place called the Franklin, which was a private, it's a private, was a private collectibles. Yeah, fine art collectibles house. And then also this place called the Johnson Atelier, which did life-size statues and more as a foundry, but also sculpture studio. So those were the things that I always had in the back of my mind as an option. And the Mint always seemed like something that I wanted to do because I was told that I sculpted relief very well when I was in Russia. But again, it seemed like this mysterious thing. It didn't seem like something you could actually get a job with. Because, yeah, it's just, you know, it was like, yeah, there was a mystique about it, you know? Yeah, okay. Go on, sorry about that. No, no, so how did you kind of had that education? You went to Russia, you've spent 10 years studying. How did you then turn that into a career? Was it easy to find a job when you came back to the US? I came home and kind of looked around for about a month and I found a job at the place called the Johnson Atelier, the Fine Art Foundry. Okay. And there I helped with life-size figures and more for about eight years. And I was also, I also took the initiative to get digital sculpting software for our department when it was apparent that the organization was going digital. So I spent many years after work and on the weekends teaching myself digital sculpting software. And I also took a community college class in that direction. But, you know, I was kind of like thinking about getting a job in film or video games or this kind of thing. I didn't really ever see that, I didn't foresee that there was a way that I could leverage my new digital sculpting skills into a career making actual sculpture other than like somebody's assistant or something like that. Cause that's what I did at the Foundry. I would make models for famous artists but it would be their product, you know? Okay. So then the opportunity at the Mint presented itself and I took advantage of that and I started here in 2005. I think it was August of 2005, July or August. Okay. And do you remember the first coin you worked on? Yes, I did a design for the Utah State Quarter under the mentorship of future chief engraver, John Mercanti. He was not there at the time. He was just kind of like the unofficial department head. And he separated my design along and it actually got picked. So I sculpted the Utah State Quarter. And following that, my design for the George Washington presidential $1 coin, the golden dollars that were kind of popularly known. I did Washington, I did Jefferson. I think I got Martha Washington, Shoo, Abigail Adam. I did a bunch of them. Or my first year, I did a bunch of coins my first year. And one thing that was interesting is the Mint made me sculpt them all traditionally because they wanted, before the Mint, I think before, rightly so, digital having been so new at the time and me being so new, they wanted to make sure that I understood the fundamental principles of relief sculpture for coin making before they would allow me free rein to just go digital and do my thing. So I learned a tremendous amount, even though I had a lot of experience sculpting stuff relief traditionally, I learned a ton of stuff about coin making that first year when I sculpted everything in clay and plaster. It was a great education. Excellent. So coming back to the kind of digital aspect. So you first got exposed to that in New Jersey, at the Johnson Atelier, is that right? It was in a Princeton, it was in the Princeton area. And I exposed my, I got exposed to the idea of digital there, but I was the one that I want to phrase this right. I pursued learning digital sculpture on my own independently, independent of the organization. The organization at the time had a pretty closed door policy about who it was letting into the digital department. So I had to teach myself in order to what I thought was going to be preserving my job. And it proved to be effective because the owner of the place kind of gave me a position as like one of the digital, as the digital sculpting resource for the organization. And it worked out well. It wasn't my favorite job in the world working there, but it was a great stepping stone. I was there for eight years or so. It was very difficult and painful in a lot of ways, but I learned a tremendous amount. And I was a lot of good people were there. Yeah, okay. So when you initially started using technology to sculpt, were you completely open to that idea? Was that something you wanted to kind of embrace? Yeah, I think having been born as part of the first real video game generation members. You know, I grew up with the Atari 2600 in television, Colecovision, all those old console games. And then pinball, I mean, excuse me, arcade games. Well, pinball of course, that's not digital, but you know, all the arcade games and all that stuff. And I always had an interest in technology, interest in space and stuff like that. But one thing that was cool was I remember when I was in grad school in New York, I saw an article in some art magazines about the production of portraits via scanning or scanning and then CNC milling, computer numerically controlled milling machines, which are like, it's like a regular mill, but it moves around in space on an arm and it cuts things out of stone or styrofoam or things like that. And that made that I saw, I just, it kind of felt like to me at the time that despite the fact that I was working in just with clay and charcoal and stuff like that, something spoke to me that I don't want to sound like I was prophetic or any pretentious stuff like that. But I definitely got a little twinge in my stomach saying that this was the future. Yeah, excellent. Okay, so do you think, or do you ever get either coin collectors or just kind of art critics or fans of art that think digital is somehow inferior to the traditional approach? I think in all branches of professional, I won't say fine art, but any type of professional art, say it's coins or collectibles or anything like that, there was a bit of a controversy early on as to what was better, traditional or digital. And I know I was met with, I know that it was met with some skepticism by different folks that I've worked with over the years early on in getting into it. But I think that that dialogue has kind of come to an end and it's been resolved very peacefully. And now it's more of a question of efficiency without a sacrifice of quality. And as long as like my goal, I started sculpting digitally for the mint, like my goal was like, I don't want anybody to be able to tell that this should be indistinguishable from something that was made by hand, the finished product. And we were able to pull that off. I don't mean pull it off like a trick. I mean that we were successful in that endeavor. I was the digital, I did the digital sculpting part of it, but then they had the tooling side of the manufacturing part of the division that handled making the steel that to create the actual coins. And through a concentrated team effort, we were able to bridge the bridge, we were able to build a bridge to the future for the United States Mint. And I think thereby for the rest of the world because I honestly think with all due respect in terms of the developing an engagement of the digital technology early on, with all due respect, all of the mint and this might be my own ignorance as well, but I think we were a world leader and still are in our engagement of that technology. Not me or anybody else, just because it's everything, engravers, artists, you get a lot of credit and that's cool. You get your initials on the coin and that's a tremendous honor. I don't want to downplay that, but the reality of it is is every single product that's made by any mint is a team effort. And depending on the workflows of the respective organizations, it takes a small army of people just to get out the master tooling part of it. You know what I mean, right? By master tooling, you know, the stuff that gets disseminated throughout the rest of the mints so that facilities so that they can make their respective products. But other mints over the years from what I've seen, I'm not really really well-burst in the technical capabilities of our colleagues around the world, but I just see nothing but beautiful stuff being done all over. And I think it's just, you know, a lot of people get a lot of people, I think a lot of people on the inside of the coin world, some people wonder about the viability of coins and currency as a utilitarian product. But I think that this is perhaps the most exciting time in modern history to be working at a mint. And I think there's more potential than ever. There's more potential for incredible products than ever before. And I think there's going to be, you know, the collectors and fans of coins that have a lot to look forward to going into the future. But I'm no expert, that's just my intuition, that's just my feeling. Yeah, no, that sounds really exciting. And it could all be my desire for job security. Yeah, I guess so. No, no, that does sound really exciting. And one thing I wanted to ask as well was how does it compare working on something like a coin, quite intricate, quite small, compared to the other kind of sculpting you were doing, presumably you've worked on quite large scale. Sure. Well, the one thing, and I was just talking to a colleague today, one thing that's interesting is, you know, when you're working digitally, there is no scale, really, because you can zoom in to something that's like an inch in diameter and make it so it's 13 inches across on your screen, or zoom in to just the eye of a portrait, fills your entire screen. It's a completely different way of working. And even though the final product is sculpture, I think that the process itself is equally analogous to drawing as it is to sculpting, because typically you use a stylus and you're sculpting on a glass surface. And it requires, it relies on the gesture of your hand, the way drawing does. And you think in three-dimensional space the way you do with drawing, but you're making a form that ultimately is realized as sculpture. So it's an interesting challenge, you know? Yeah, excellent. OK, so I guess this might be quite a difficult question to answer, but how does the process work from the very concept of a coin right through to kind of you finishing or you signing off your parts of it? Is there a lot of preparation in terms of artwork and different ideas? Well, we're all artists here in this department and we get to submit designs along with our artistic infusion program colleagues. And then the drawings get reviewed by committees, the CCAC and the CFA. And based on their recommendations, a design is selected for a particular product. If it's your design, you get to sculpt it, or if it's designed by one of the artistic infusion program artists, then I assign those out and then they get sculpted. And some people work in clay and have them ultimately digitized. Some people work in clay and also in tandem with digital software sculpting. And then some people work exclusively digitally. There's no imposition on any. There's no requirement that anyone here work any particular way. The only requirement is that they work the way that's best suited for them to make the best possible product. And then once that process is finished, in tandem, the medallic artists, as they're called, as I used to be called, work in tandem with what are called product design specialists. These specialists are also artists themselves. And what they do is ensure the coinability of the design before it goes into production. So that's basically it. We have a very practiced. And successful pipeline in this side of in this corner of the mint. And we're very fortunate to be, I think, to be able to play the part in the process that we do. And it's a lot of responsibility. And everybody here takes it really seriously. Yeah. And how does it feel when you've gone through that process to actually see the coin or have one in your hand? I mean, it's always great. And it's easy to take it for granted after a long time up in your 15 years. But you never you never really take it for granted. You know, you see when you see something that you work really hard on and see that it's come out well, and it's going to represent, you know, not just the mint, but your entire country to the world. It's a great honor. And it it's always a great honor. You know, it's easy to take it. It's easy to take it for granted, but I don't think anybody who does. It could be easy to take it for granted. I mean, yes, yeah. So I know your your initials, Joe, on the penny that's used in the U.S. Is that right? Yes, that was the reverse of the penny was designed by a great artist and Lindell Bass. So that's her actual drawing and I sculpted it. But we what we typically at the mint when there's a designer and artist when they're separate people, entities, rather, most initials go on the coin. But if the sculptor was also the designer, then just that there's only one set of initials on the coin. I see. OK. So you ever tempted to tell people if you see, you know, if you're in the store and you get some change, you ever tempted to say, that's me? I did. I did some of that early on. When you buy or like, you know, when I'd be walking with a fine one tails up on the sidewalk, that was cool. And, you know, and yeah, I mean, it's really that was a great honor to be assigned that. And I'm very fortunate. I guess, you know, I mean, I just turn 51 a little while ago and I've been here 15 years and I start to think about the long run, you know, my portfolio of what I've done. And that's definitely highlight, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And of course, becoming the chief engraver, that must have been something really special as well. Yeah, that's one of the greatest honors of my life in any capacity, professionally or personal. Yeah, fantastic. And where I mean, where you're aware of the kind of history of that role and also just the many coin engravers that have been active at the mint in the past. Well, I was here when my former boss and mentor, John McConte became the 12th chief engraver, I believe it was, when he was named 12th chief engraver by then director Ed Moy, I believe it was at the time. And so this is going to sound like self-serving, but even before John was chief engraver, you know, John served under Frank Isbarro and former chief engraver Frank Isbarro. And I hope I got that name right when I was talking about the apocryphal story about the penny. I may have said John McConte. But anyway, Frank Isbarro was the sculptor of the reverse of the penny. And John used to tell me that I reminded him. My mannerism is reminded him of Frank's. And John would, John would always say that one day I was going to be chief engraver. You know, he'd always tell me. And I just took it for, I was like, whatever, you know. And he was one of the first people I called when I got the job. And he just said, I knew it. I told you. Yeah, fantastic. What does the, sorry, carry on, Joe, carry on. No, no, go on, please. I was just going to ask what the role kind of entails. So, you know, making that step up, obviously a real honor. But is there a lot of responsibility that comes with it? Yeah, there's a lot more than I thought, honestly. I still sculpt and draw, although not as much as I used to because I have managerial duties that include art directing. Well, I expected the art direct. I art direct all the 2D artwork from the outside artists and the inside artists. And then I also art direct all the sculpting that's done. I also get all the assignments to the various sculptors and I have to meet the scheduled deadlines. We as a team have to meet them. But if a schedule benchmark is missed, it's my responsibility more than, it's not the artist's responsibility, ultimately it's my responsibility. So, you know, we have a pretty robust workload at all times and I take that responsibility very seriously to make sure the schedule is met with the highest level of quality. And yeah, I mean, basically there's a lot. There's a lot. I mean, it's not, but it's not overwhelming, sometimes a little bit for me, but it's not that, I feel like I've been growing into the world the longer I've had it. And I'm very grateful to have the mentorship of my supervisor, Ron Haragall. I mean, Ron really walks me through a lot of the, you know, I won't say pitfalls, but navigating the world of being a manager is a very particular skill set. Yeah. And I, Ron's an incredible manager, along with John McConte, he's one of the best people I've ever worked for. And he's really helped me get through a lot of the harder stuff and be productive and still be compassionate at the same time. And I also have to, I owe a great deal of thanks to director Ryder, David Ryder, for, you know, trusting me with this position, you know. He's also, he's got a great vision and he's done a lot for the Mint, I think in the time, I've been in 15 years. I know it's not his first time here, but as a director, I think he's doing a fantastic job. It's just a really great time to be here in general. Yeah. Just going on in the outside world. I know we're having a hard, that's the other thing that's really cool is that we've managed to stay, we're talking to another colleague about this. We are such a strong division and the Mint is so strong as a whole that despite what the world is going through, we've managed to stay productive and health. And I mean, I mean, institutionally healthy. I don't mean, I don't mean by a lot, you know what I mean, like we've managed to stay productive and vibrant despite everything that's going on in the outside. And it's just a testament to all the people that work. It's not just this division, it's everybody that works at the Mint and every facility in any capacity. I always say that, I don't want to sound like rah-rah pretentious, but I mean, it takes everyone in this building to make the coins and metals that we do, you know, from the custodial staff, I'm not saying that they're any lower, but I'm just saying from the custodial staff all the way to the superintendent's office, every single person in this building and every other Mint facility are equally important in the process. Yeah. One of us can't do our jobs without the other, doing theirs. Yeah, that's fantastic to hear. You know, it's such a difficult time for everyone around the world that to hear those kind of, you know, even if it's from a kind of a work perspective to see people coming together and getting on with things and doing the best they can. It's fantastic. One thing, I know you've got so many different coins you've worked on, but would you be able to pick a favorite, do you think, if you had to? Yeah, honestly, I think, well, both are metals. Reverse for His Holiness the Dalai Lama's, Congressional Gold Medal was a great honor in and of itself, but having gotten in 2008, the opportunity to go to his hotel room in the morning with a group from the Mint and Don Everhart, the men who designed and sculpted the alvers and John and just the whole team. Wow, an hour with His Holiness before going to the Capitol to watch President Bush give him the medal and the whole thing. That was incredible. But then also having done the, I designed and sculpted the, I forget if I think it was the alvers, but for the Shanksville Heroes of 9-11, I'm probably garbling the name, but at the Heroes of 9-11, Congressional Gold Medal, the Shanksville Pennsylvania Site Medal, designed and sculpted the alvers of that. And that just as a sculpture and design and piece of art, that's probably the most important thing I've ever done in my life, just provided to commemorate it. Well, that's really kind of such a poignant thing to have to do, isn't it, or responsibility? So, I mean, how do you kind of approach something like that that's so emotional? And how do you, is there a way you can kind of put that emotion into the design, into the artwork? Well, I think having studied monumental sculpture in Russia and learning how to invest yourself in the creation of a memorial or monument lent itself to my approach doing either commemorative coins or medals that honor particular recipients in a certain way. It's just, basically, I think I try and imagine what this product's going to mean to the people who it's going to mean something to. And I try and make it with an eye towards being worthy of their, being worthy of their cherishing that object that you have a hand in making. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That's kind of brought me to the end of the questions. One final question. It's just what kind of, what does the future hold, do you think, for the US Mint, and do you have any kind of projects that are on the go at the moment that you can tell us about? I think the future of the Mint is best described by people above my pay grade. But I wouldn't be here if I didn't think that this was not the place to be for me until I retire. I think the future of the Mint is bright. And I just, I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be here. And however long that is, I will be grateful for it to the end. And we're always working on new stuff. I'm never allowed to talk about it, but I'm sure you that, you know, my goal is that as chief engravers, whatever we do is always going to be the best thing we've ever done. So I would just look forward to continue high standards being met and presented to the American people in the world as a result of our efforts, collective efforts. Yeah. Okay. And with your, you kind of experiencing comic books or love of comic books and sci-fi, that kind of thing. Do you think there's any kind of future projects that might combine both of those interests for you in terms of coin projects? If I were to retire and then I could do different things for different minutes to do license stuff. But I have a very active personal side profile where I do collectibles and work in that world. So it kind of satisfies that interest. So I feel very fortunate that I'm able to enjoy my passion for fantasy sci-fi and comics and still be chief engraver of the US Mint and execute the profound duty of serving the Mint and the country by my modest efforts here, I guess. Again, I hate to sound like, I really feel this way. I really feel strongly about being here. I think it's like really, I'm really lucky to be doing this job. They could have picked anybody else who wanted to and they picked me, so I feel very lucky. That sounds like a great combination of interests if you can do both of those things successfully. I think as a community of artists around the world participating in this craft, I think it's very, very strong. And great work is coming out. So, I mean, yeah, we're all individual mints and all that stuff. And of course, my Mint and my country comes first, but I do have a profound respect for my colleagues around the world. And just like I would in any other branch of sculpture, I try to keep a universal perspective of what's going on because you can only learn by looking at other people's work. It's never going to hurt you. If you insulate yourself too much, you wind up becoming repetitive and I think that's a boring thing. Yeah, so do you collect any coins yourself? I don't really buy my own coins because my mother bought all of them and tripled it going back. So she pretty much buys most of what I do and I have that collection in safe hands. Yeah, I really don't buy any art products that I participate in. It's not because I don't think they're good or anything. It's just like, I'm always thinking about the next one. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, that's great, Joe. Thank you so much for your time and good luck with everything at the Mint. And stay safe. Thanks so much for your time. You too. Thank you so much for having me. I really, really appreciate it. I hope this is useful for anyone that hears it and I really appreciate being able to participate. Yeah, thank you for very honored. Thanks, Joe. Speak soon. All right, take care, man.