 Okay, welcome to everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's panel on archaeological career opportunities with agencies. I think we'd like to get started and we're going to start with a land acknowledgement and then we'll pass Mike over to our moderator bill white. Yeah, I'll start with the land acknowledgement. The archaeological research facility is located in the chin the ancestral and unseated territory of the Chechenya speaking alone people, successors of the historic and sovereign grown a band about me to town. We acknowledge that this land remains a great importance to the aloney people, and that the art community inherits the history of archaeological scholarship that has disturbed aloney ancestors in a race living aloney people from the present and the future of this land. And therefore our collective responsibility to critically transform our archaeological inheritance in supportive aloney sovereignty, and to hold the University of California accountable to the needs of all American Indian indigenous people. Thanks. Yeah, I appreciate that thanks for reading that acknowledgement Nico. I'm Mike White and I'm a assistant professor of anthropology at University of California Berkeley. It's my absolute pleasure to be here on this panel with professionals. One of the things that I always look forward to is, you know, connecting with people who are working outside of academia folks that are working with agencies and cultural resources companies to try to get my finger on the pulse of what folks are looking for out there, and the things that we teach and so, you know, I, I always find these panel discussions really informational and I enjoy engaging with folks because I actually listen and take what you all say seriously and try to incorporate that into what I'm teaching at Cal. So today, you know, I appreciate everyone showing up to this panel discussion. We've got a great cast of folks who work for several different agencies here in the state of California. These are the kind of folks who supervise and hire archaeologists so students in the room if you're here, you know you're in the right spot. We've got several folks here. I think the way that this a good structure for this would be for folks to do, you know, a short introduction to tell us all who you are and what you do. And then after that we have a couple of questions. And then, you know, as time allows, we'll pass a couple of questions that we had from our email discussion back chat. Go through a couple of those and then I want to make sure that there's plenty of time for the students in the room to ask questions to so I've got a list of folks here in the email. And I'm just going to go to my list, and I'm going to ask folks to introduce themselves. And if you've got a presentation or you want to tell us a little bit more about what you do at your agency, you know now's the time so I'm going to go to my list and I know it's in alphabetical order so apologies if I get this last name incorrect. Darren and Alina, please introduce yourself. All right, good. Yeah, so I'm Darren and Alina I work for California Department of Parks and Recreation. And as an archaeologist I'm a supervisor for a specialized program called the cannabis watershed protection program. And basically what that is is it's a team of us with that includes law enforcement, natural resources personnel, as well as facilities and maintenance personnel to help address the impacts to California park property from illegal cannabis cultivation. And a lot of what we do has to do with like pesticide dumping and trash, but also part of that is the impact to cultural resources. So, it's, it's a really great team and Department of Parks and Recreation, as far as I know is the only land owning agency that actually includes full time dedicated cultural staff to these types of activities I mean obviously illegal cannabis. Cultivation impacts lots of agencies and lots of landholders but that we actually have dedicated cultural staff which is great. And yeah, I think that's about all I got to say about the work that I do. All right, thank you, I appreciate that. David Cohen, please. My name is David Cohen. Just to let you know where I am to my connection to Berkeley I received my doctorate from UC Berkeley in 2009. There's an anthropologist archaeology archaeology. I work now for the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA. In Region nine, Region nine for FEMA covers California Nevada Arizona Hawaii, America and Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana islands. So, big, big range for us. I work within the environmental and historic preservation branch of FEMA and Region nine FEMA itself isn't like a lot of federal agencies that have land or facilities or anything they're managing. We are a mission oriented agency where we help people before, during and after disasters. And my role within that EHP or Environmental Historic Preservation Branch to ensure that FEMA's actions are compliant with NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act. And then all the associated laws and executive orders that federal agencies comply with myself being an archaeologist. My specialty is of course section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, working with state preservation officers, tribal preservation officers, federal recognized tribes, other interested parties like state recognized tribes and any anyone else in the general public or historic societies and the like. And what FEMA's involved in is we become involved when there's presententially declared disasters, but also when there's projects to mitigate against future disasters. And I specialize a lot in the mitigation component, less in the post disaster repair everything realm, and more of the mitigating its future disaster, which I find more interesting in terms of work as an archaeologist because there's a lot more from your building infrastructure and putting things in place unless of the just putting it back in place. So there's a lot more challenges and I get to work with a lot of different federal agencies, state and state agencies as well. Just to help everyone along in that process. Thank you David Cohen. Cal alum alright I like hearing that like seeing that. Okay, next alphabetically is Lynn gas away please take it away. Good afternoon everybody. I'm another Cal alumni, I did my undergraduate a class of 2001. Also Barry a person got my master's degree at San Francisco State. So, I am the last and national forest heritage program manager. I'm also the tribal relations liaison, and a resource advisor coordinator for the last national forest. So, as a heritage program manager that's sort of a fancy name for forest archaeologist, I oversee the archaeology that takes place on the last one, and we are about 1.2 million acres. We're one of 18 forests in California. So, oversee all the section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act work that takes place. We have three district archaeologists under and then we hire crews every summer and work from there. I've also worked for the National Park Service done some contract archaeology and spend a year in Texas working for the Texas National Guard as an archaeologist so at that background spent most of my time in California. All of our work on the last in goes from just digging a hole for a fence post all the way up to large really large scale. Things like the Dixie fire that just happened this last summer which was almost a million acres of land that burned about 360,000 acres of that burned on the last national forest. Which is a lot of work that we're going to be hiring for in the near future. I also specialize in fire, go off help other forests, other parks on protecting cultural resources during fire and doing tribal relations and protecting tribal interests during fires and suppression of those fires. I believe, before the pandemic I attended a great talk you gave on fire archaeology was on campus here. So, it's good to see that, you know you're still working towards that but kind of sad that the fires are so tragic and persistent that you know this is a continual event. Okay. Next on my list I've got star lane, please. I'm star lane and I am a cultural resource specialist for PG&E. I'm actually kind of snuck in here because we're not an agency so PG&E is actually an investor owned utility that has publicly traded stock, however, we're highly regulated by the California Public Utility Commission right so there's multiple utilities in California that have been have we kind of have our space that we're operating in and providing utility services. So, I have worked at PG&E for a bit over six years. I've been a professional archaeologist for over 20 years now. I did my undergrad at CSU Chico and I got my graduate degree at UMass Boston. So, PG&E currently employs about 13 cultural resource specialists and we have a service area that stretches from Eureka in the north down to Bakersfield in the south from the Pacific Ocean in the west and to the Sierra Nevada in the east. And then we have actually have assets that go beyond our service territory so we have pipelines gas transmission pipelines coming in from Topoc down on the Arizona California border so we've got our assets that we managed through the Mojave desert and extending up to Modoc County on the Oregon border so there's a lot of assets that PG&E has to keep in cultural compliance with the various state federal and state laws. So the 13 cultural resource specialists that are currently employed by PG&E, we each have a territory that we're assigned to and within that territory we oversee all cultural compliance in there. So what we do is is that whether it's on private land, if it has a state or federal nexus, so on land or permit that is issued by a federal or state agency, we work with our army of consultants. We suck up a lot of the consultants out there and resources and we're making sure that they are producing work products and deliverables to submit to our agency counterparts. We work with our tribal communities both federally recognized and unrecognized communities that are assets to travel through their traditional lands and territories. So yeah, it's a lot so it is really an interesting job because you're doing cultural compliance for you have to know federal laws, state laws, a lot of collaboration with stakeholders, both external whether there are agency counterparts or tribal partners, and also internal because PG&E is also a construction company, right? We're building, we're doing everything from replacing a single distribution hole to building brand new transmission lines, gas transmission lines, building new brand new electric transmission lines with much different ground disturbance. So the kind of I think one of the interesting things about it is that we do actually get to see a project from and like when they first conceive it we see the initial engineering and we often have time to have the opportunity to comment and help re engineer things for our avoidance and projection of cultural resources. And along with then when we have our assets on federal or state lands that we're working with our colleagues and counterparts to ensure cultural avoidance of cultural resources, they're properly being managed, and that PG&E is doing everything in our power to help mitigate impacts. Oh, it's a huge job for only 13 folks I mean that's pretty incredible things that all the activities that's going on there PG&E I didn't know you know, as a person who's just the end user that turns on their light I don't. It's all a mystery to me right until someone actually explains all the stuff that's going on so wow I definitely hope that the questions come back around to you because there's a million questions I've got as well. I want to make sure that everyone has time though of course. So, next on my list alphabetically is David Price please. Thank you. Yeah, my name is David Price I'm with the California Department of Transportation. I'm the section 106 coordinator here at Caltrans headquarters in Sacramento. I'm thinking we're a state agency why are you the section 106 coordinator. That's because we have been assigned lead federal agency status for federal aid highway projects by FHWA. So we are responsible for section 106 and NEPA. In addition to CEQA and PRC 5024 and AB 52 compliance for our projects which much like PG&E we engineer and then often see all the way through to the end of construction. So in that role, or I'm sorry in this setting my main role in the position is to oversee statewide compliance for our 140 plus cultural resource specialists that work in district offices up and down the state. And we comply with 106 and my main role as the 106 coordinator is to ensure compliance with our statewide programmatic agreement program level programmatic agreement. And under that programmatic agreement we actually delegate a lot of responsibility to the district archaeologists. And so headquarters comes in on projects that actually have the potential to impact cultural resources or historic properties. We do a lot, though nowhere near as much as if we had to consult under the straight regs with SHPO for no historic properties affected projects and similar other projects. And that has over 50,000 lane miles and we also administer federal funding for through the federal aid highway project to local agencies. So there is an almost countless amount of lane miles and highway acreage and highway and non highway acreage that we oversee section 106 compliance on projects for So that's about it says that's about it but that's a lot once again you know 50,000 miles. You know, once again, this is definitely someone I'd like to come back to in the questions. The next person on the list though that I've got is Rylan Thomas please. Hey, my name is Rylan Thomas. I'm with the Department of Water Resources. And I have an MA and anthropology from University of West Florida. I've been working for DWR for about four years now. And it's a pretty massive. It's not massive agency but it's a good size agency, and we're responsible mainly for managing the state water project, which extends the entire length practically of the state of California, and water delivery in California. And then we also have responsibilities for flood protection and levy maintenance and management. And then all of the infrastructure that's associated with that. And then I am focused on the Lake Orville area primarily and the Feather River drainage. A lot of the work that I do here is in compliance with sequel and public resource code 5024. And then we also have a FERC license in Orville that's the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. So there's also section 106 compliance requirements up there. And then we often time have to get permits from the Army Corps so there's, there's 106 applications with those permits as well. And yeah, we get to do kind of a variety of work we do have a lot of consultants doing inventories and effects analysis but sometimes we get to do that on our own. So it depends on the scale of the project. And then I'm also, so I'm doing technical work and doing archaeological surveys, but also coordinating larger scale projects with consultants. And then a big part of my job is tribal consultation with the my dude community in this area. You know, certain times of the year that's 100% of my job for you know depending on on the stage of a project and then other times of the year I'm writing a technical report or out in the field doing inventory and yeah and then occasionally we do some large scale archaeological mitigation but that's few and far between. So yeah, I think that's, that's all I got to start. Yeah, that's great once again really interesting, really interesting work and, you know, once again a huge range of things that you're involved in the part of the administration of. So, we have seven total people and last but definitely not least, Miss Susan why please tell us all introduce yourself and tell us all what you do. Hi, good afternoon everybody. My name is Susan white and I am the regional heritage program manager with the Forest Service. And what that basically outlines pragmatically is just as you've heard from Lynn, there's 18 great forest and 18 wonderful heritage program managers or forest archaeologists for each of the forest in California. And I provide guidance and federal regulations and as well as Forest Service policy, the old adage of the more you do archaeology the less you do archaeology I could say that now I rarely go on the field nowadays. But it's been a it's a bit of like a wonderful ride and stuff so I try to liaise on between our forest archaeologists and our big bureaucratic Washington office and the regional forest or that sort of thing. So a lot of politics involved there background or just come up the evolutionary scale of different types of jobs. And before this I was a naval base venture accounting which is port line me and naval base, the air station foot Magoo, so I worked for the Navy. And before that, I was working for the Bureau of Reclamation, which does dams and canals up in the state of Washington did a few years there. Also been a bomb work for the Air Force base there and bomb, and very fortunate and spending a good 10 years or so with the Oregon ship out state of start preservation office. And before that many private firms, as well as being a county archaeologists Sarasota County in Florida and Brian Hello, I'm an Florida State undergrad and a university of Florida grad. I have had a taste of many different areas, and been extremely fortunate, and how I progressed in my career. I think that's it. No, I don't think so at all. It's 25 years this year. I'm archaeology for 25 years. So I am old. I think, you know, experience right skill. That's what it is. Yeah, we never get old. We just get more experience right. That's what we get. Yeah. Yeah, you know, this is awesome. This is excellent to hear all the different diverse things that everyone's doing here. And we had a couple of questions that were sent out. Through email to all the panelists and all the folks here but you know I think the thing that's interesting that I forgot to put on there is asking folks, you know how they got their start. And so I want to make sure that everyone has a chance to address this because in the room there in that phase where either you know you have done some projects or you just really want to get into archaeology, and that's the reason why you're listening to this. And so hearing how people get their start I think is really important. So I know that we didn't ask that question but I don't think that anyone really ever forgets how they started in archaeology. And you know I don't know how to organize this thing. I don't want to go on the same list thing I want folks when they're inspired to speak up, but I think we have plenty of time here if you if you're interested in your willing, please someone start us off and tell us about your archaeology story how did you get into this into this game. This is Lane and I'm willing to start that. Okay, you know, as an undergraduate at Berkeley I just, I started doing some CRM just got some work for some companies around the Bay Area, and then didn't really know what I was doing. And somebody's like, Hey, when you apply for there's, you know, this thing, this website you can apply for jobs all over the country. And today the job that websites called USA jobs, and you can go on and apply for any federal job, any archaeology across the nation and any federal agency. And I did that. And I got a call one day, they said, Would you like a job and I went, Sure, where Pennsylvania. I mean, I'm in the Bay Area, and they say you want to come to Pennsylvania and have an archaeology job with the Allegheny National Forest. So I had a job for the summer there. My, I was up to this story. How, how do I get there. We'll get on highway 80 drive 4000 miles exit, exit number 80, make a left hand turn drive 50 miles and right there's where your office will be. Couldn't be simpler. But, you know, two years in Pennsylvania. I then moved on to the Texas National Guard just by same thing, applying for a job ended up there for a year, applied for another job left for USA jobs, ended up in Yosemite National Park, spent four years there. Then, and in what we call a term position. My first jobs on the Allegheny were seasonal positions like about six months a year. When I got to Yosemite, it was term position four years. And then I moved into a permanent job I got another permanent job I ended up at whiskey town outside of Reading. I worked for four parks there. I went to whiskey town Lassen volcanic lava beds and Redwood National Park. While I was doing that I went back to school got my master's degree. So I was got my permanent job and into my master's program within a month of each other, and somehow ended up juggling both at the same time start really starting a permanent career. And then I just sort of jumped around since then I've just seen jobs applied for them. I ended up in Washington State, then ended up down on the Sequoia National Forest for nine years and then on the Lassen for for six. And I will say as part of that journey within that career. You know I've ended up doing fire and that was sort of just one day my boss came up to me and said hey, we like your work. Have you ever thought about working doing some fire stuff and I went, I don't even know what that means, but if that means a job yes. So they send me to fire training and yeah, 25 years later I'm still doing fire. And I never thought I would like it. I never wasn't even really sure I would like federal service, but I love it because and just taking those opportunities and just sending out, you know, I don't think it's a good job but just applying for it anyways, and, and then just taking the opportunistic places to go and move throughout your career. I never would have guessed I am where I am, but it's been a fun ride and I'm going to keep riding it. Can I put a plug in. If anybody wants to be as cool as Lynn right now the for service is having a nationwide hiring event. It is actually geared toward recent graduates. Sarah has the email those there's links into USA jobs to let you know that it is going to be 21 to 28 so for you to apply so get on the USA jobs. You can get a chance, and you can have as exciting a life as when so apply. Yeah, I love that I'm glad you reminded us all Susan because that's what this whole thing is about trying to provide opportunities for folks students in the audience. Anybody else want to talk about their archaeology origin stories. Yeah, kind of, I don't know if this is similar to Lynn but I had done a couple of field schools and undergrad in Kentucky, and I don't even know if this is still a thing but professor suggested the. Let's look into the student conservation association SCA. And if you can get a job through USA jobs as straight out of undergrad go for it that's awesome you're getting paid. And what I did instead was the SCA, you basically apply through their website and to a variety of different positions and it's usually US Forest Service or National Park Service, and then other land management agencies, and the first gig I got this was 12 years ago now was on the Stanislaus National Forest, and I came all the way out here for a seasonal gig on the Stanislaus, and with Priscilla riff call, and in the cool thing about being an intern who's not actually getting paid is you usually get to do some of the coolest projects and get to do like fun field work or that was my experience so. Yeah, we were doing archaeological surveys in the Twalamy River Canyon and just rafting on a weekly basis and getting out of various sites and doing site recordation and survey and yeah it was a dream. And then I actually did a couple more gigs like that on the Daniel Boone National Forest, and then great Smoky Mountains National Park. I went to grad school. So I had a little bit of experience before I went to grad school, which kind of helped me a lot and then when I finished up there. Then I applied to jobs through USA jobs that I had, you know, I had the degree and I could kind of go that route but Susan, when if, if folks can get jobs with just a field school as a tech through USA jobs right now then. I would totally encourage them to do that, make money, don't just like. Yeah, get put up and in park housing, not in get a weekly stipend that's not ideal, but that's how I started. So pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. I'll jump in now to a competitive bid for Cal careers instead of USA jobs which is where you'd go to Caltrans, or to go to get hired at Caltrans. You may have heard of a recent massive infusion of cash into infrastructure. We're hiring. There is a huge glut of positions and not enough people to to hire them a Caltrans hires, you know, everywhere from consult well we don't we directly you know contract so we have a lot of effect and hiring both consultants from the private firm all the way through and we're actually hiring for Caltrans ourselves basically up and down the state right now. I got my start I it's a little different than a lot of people both my parents were archaeologists, my mom for the state and my dad for the private side. And when I was 18 I was delivering pizzas and my dad came to me at one point and said hey we need someone to use a breaker bar to punch 50 centimeter holes through asphalt and downtown Napomo and said I was perfect for it. So I went out and I think it was 10 bucks an hour or something like that at the time and it was the best money I'd ever made. And so I said hey can I keep doing this and they the company said if you want to you need to spend the next six months sitting in a lab sorting old glass and flakes. So I went from breaking holes through asphalt to doing lab processing, and from there worked part time and then eventually full time for the pride for for that firm. At a certain point, I realized I wanted to go a little bit further go into more of a man it won't manager let's you know supervisory or or more kind of advanced role and realize that needed a master's degree so I decided to go to Sonoma State, which had a degree geared specifically towards cultural resource management, and was focused on historic archaeology though I did my thesis and trained classically more more towards the prehistoric side. And then once I got that degree, actually, Caltrans was hiring I decided to look for jobs, both on USA jobs and on Cal careers actually. And Caltrans was hiring a position near where I was. They let me start before I even finished my thesis and finished my thesis while I was working for Caltrans. So that was in 2015, and seven years later that was in District three and right out of Sacramento and seven years later I'm working at headquarters in Sacramento. In the 106 position so there is, you know I started as a tech on a particularly horrible jobs, and am now working at headquarters so there's, there's advancement opportunities at Caltrans. And yeah plug Cal careers again. There's always something to be said to just human pile driver in archaeology that you know that opens doors for you literally if you have a, you know, eight pound steel bar in your arms you can open the door, or you can you know you can use that to have someone open it for you. You say exactly. Yeah, I love it I love that. I started out actually as an undergrad at CSU Chico, and I would encourage anybody to like reach out to your professors like reach out look for opportunities at your university because a lot of times people aren't taking advantage of them. So I started at 19, working in the art lab at Chico State. And they had at the time a very robust kind of cultural resource management program coming out of there so they were doing projects underneath the research aspect of the university so we would go up and I'd go with a more senior archaeologist and we would go into some of the private harvest surveys on the National Forest. I helped put together a bunch of site records for a project called the sites reservoir, which is still an ongoing kind of off water being that they're, they were looking at doing but that was one of the first projects I was working on. So I was very fortunate that I got a ton of experience I was paid it was my work study they were very flexible with my university schedule. And by the time I finished my undergrad I had more work experience than most graduate students did at the at the university. So definitely look for those whether it's an internship whether it's work study, whether it's volunteering start getting that experience sooner than later. So after I finished up at Chico State, I did go straight on to grad school at UMass Boston, and I worked with a gentleman their name Steve Solomon and my thesis was actually on the second oldest reservation in the United States and the Eastern Pequot Reservation which was established by the Connecticut colony. And so that really helped in shaped me as an archaeologist because it was working with a dissenting community, it was working in collaboration with them. And I thought about what really honest and truthful consultation was and having conversations that might be uncomfortable but everyone needed to have them and the importance of those conversations. So that also was, you know, go into that program and then I worked, I worked in the lab there so I because I had the experience at Chico State, I was funded to go in and start working in the lab at UMass Boston right off the bat to. This morning I was a staff archaeologist for a year at Chico State. And then we moved down to the Bay Area. And I started working at a place or a firm called Pacific Legacy which is based in Berkeley and I was there Pacific Legacy for eight years as a staff archaeologist there before I came to PG&E. So that's like I would like to say I would just really, really take advantage of those opportunities out there to get the experience so you can put it on your resume that you can show you've got the skills and that you've got variation in your experience. Yeah, I appreciate that it does seem like there's definitely a trend of folks going from many different things, testing the waters and just, you know, moving around getting that experience. David I think I saw you go ahead yes. So, on an interesting path to archaeology. I, as an undergrad I was in, I went to school in New York City for film and television. So I had an idea I was going to be, I was going to do a film sound recording and that was my route to kind of like art house cinema is going to be a poor artist for a while. So I had an outside course I had to take and end up taking archaeology hooked up with a guy there was inspired one in a field school to Southwestern France to do a excavation of paleolithic rock shelter. Through that picked it up as a second major, which is kind of weird for all of my colleagues in art school, or in that film school that I was doing some like second major like that, but ended up just being inspired coming to grad school you see Berkeley through that. And so, making a path you know I have kind of a kind of a punk DIY kind of ethos to myself so kind of, you know, I didn't find that I really liked the idea of archaeology in the public realm and public education. I like the idea of teaching but I wasn't super keen on being at a university teaching I really want to be out teaching in other venues. So I ran the public outreach program actually archaeological research facility for a while. Did stuff like art exhibit or archaeology exhibits Asian Art Museum outreach to public schools. So a lot of different things that was put together. So the whole time kind to it experience myself in what can I do with my archaeology degree that's not an academia. So, you're looking at museums looking at other venues to CRM for a while we're doing a number of projects, just trying to get lots of experience, figuring things out. So out of grad school, I was doing adjuncting at Bayer universities for a little while but during that time, doing CRM, but I saw an opportunity with getting in terms of, you know, a path toward what I was looking for working for a federal agency potentially or agency at the public service. And I saw that I need to learn the laws and develop a lot of skill sets. So I started looking at environmental firms in California. So I started working for small environmental firms, learning, not just the archaeology but also greater components like sequel, working with biologists and learning how what I was doing, fit into the larger picture of the environmental compliance that we were doing. So through that started doing more federal compliance for NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, got to do those opportunities for different companies to step up, learn more, you know, really toward that goal of saying to a, you know, apply to a federal agency and saying, I know what I'm doing. I know the laws know what I'm doing. So finally got to a point where I was looking for a national environmental consulting firm that did federal compliance for different federal agencies. It was a really cool experience to be able to get that job. That was my first experience to FEMA, but also working for a ton of other federal agencies across the country FAA. I found myself out doing surveys up in Idaho with an EPA Superfund site. I went out to New Jersey once to dig a hole behind a fire station for a project for compliance out there. So just tons of experience through those, those opportunities of looking at the consulting firms and really getting that background experience. And that was my intro to FEMA. And when the job came up with FEMA in the Region 9 office here in Oakland, I seized the opportunity applied for it, didn't get it. I think it took about three or four times applying for these that same job to then get called up through the opportunity to get into the federal system. And, you know, I think it took knowing the people at the agency. So then seeing my name pop up on a list of candidates and saying, Oh, he's doing work for us as a contractor, we work with him. I really kind of get intro to myself to, you know, get my foot in the door to kind of really go for that public service aspect that I was looking for. So it was a weird path that kind of finally got me there and I got a lot of experience along the way. Yeah, that's great. It doesn't seem like there is a, you know, ladder it's like a meandering stream with a lot of different grades and, you know, pathways, all headed towards the place where everyone's at here. I'll throw in another plug towards getting that experience, especially that some professional experience, even if it's, you know, just not towards the towards your career, but but doing some sort of, you know, cultural resource compliance work outside of the of the school that's not that's not towards your, your degree. You know, at Caltrans, we look for various things when we're hiring, but once you're hired, we have basically a tiered system of certification for you to be able to do certain tasks under our programmatic agreement. That's something that's required for us to have for you to be able to do things. And some people can feel there's the opportunity once you get to Caltrans, there's so much work to do there's so many projects or something like that, that you're overseeing a lot of work you're doing fieldwork. But to be a PR to be a principal investigator, you know, for us, you have to have that experience you have to have experience as a lead supervisor experience in the field you have to have lab experience you have to have that experience. So it can be hard to get once you're actually at Caltrans once you're actually at another agency to actually be doing that fieldwork. So it's really really helpful. And if, and I couldn't, you know, recommend it enough if you have the opportunity to do that stuff before you're actually attempting to get into a public agency. It's just, it's just really helpful. I shouldn't say that that's, you can't do that when you're at Caltrans or when you're at another agency. It's just, it can be harder. So, again, getting that that varied varied kind of experience before you actually applies is invaluable. Yeah, I'm glad you added that David that's a great segue I want to make sure there's a couple folks. I don't know if you want to share your archaeology origins or if we should just let them remain shrouded in mystery in a deep time, you know, a time before time. So I'll give you a couple of folks. All right. Oh, yeah. Cool. Pretty straightforward. You know, I did my undergrad at UC Davis, and I was really fortunate that the graduate students that ran my field school, all had experience in CRM, and they were pretty plugged into the CRM community. In addition to teaching us, you know, proper methodology and grounding us in the theoretical background of the work we're doing. They also were able to help train us on hey these these are the techniques that you're going to be using real world techniques in the field doing CRM. And so that was invaluable and then when when I graduated was looking for jobs, those were the contacts that I had within the CRM world so it's just it's about people and relationships and so I was lucky enough that I had done a good enough job at my field school that they, you know, wanted to hire me and, and that was my segue and then I spent about 20 years on the private side of things. I started out, well, started as a dig bomb, working for, you know, various companies and then I hired on by far western and spent the bulk of my private career at far western, and then got my graduate degree. I started out in different environmental firms and, you know, after 20 years, kind of like David said I really had this idea that I wanted to do public service. I really appreciated the preservation ethos of state parks, you know, really trying to preserve and manage and protect resources, you know, for future generations and for, you know, dissenting communities and. After after I said about 20 years, decided to jump over to the agency side of things. That's great. I think that's really interesting too. It seems like there's also a trend to have many folks either working in the private sector and then working for the government or going back and forth for a while. Before they're fully working for agencies I mean that definitely something I'm picking up on here. I'm not going to question, but I'm ready to go on because I'm starting to see where we're transitioning more towards conversations about skills that you all have, and you know how that all unfolded. And so, you know, we've also heard as people are announcing themselves that there's jobs out there right. Everyone in the room is like, you know, taking notes right now to try and figure out how they can apply to these jobs right so I'm just going to. Open it up to everyone here to and ask, you know, what are the kind of things that you're looking for an applicants that are coming out of college I mean, it doesn't have to be just entry level you know what are the kind of things that you all see get people promoted. You know, hire up the ladder. But then, you know, many of the folks here are entry level what are you looking for when you see that application come across your desk. And I mean I'm going to open this up to everyone, but some folks are actually hiring right now and there may be someone in this room, who is eligible to be hired so what are you all looking for right now. I can start again. If you're coming in, and you're applying for a Forest Service job and this would be the same for the Park Service or the BLM. And you're playing for a lower level job which we call them we have GS levels and an entry level field person and archaeological technician is a GS five or a GS seven is usually a crew chief. If you're going in as just a five to be on a crew. I'm really looking for people who got out of that field school, got, you know, how to do transects, how to identify archaeological sites, how to do a site write a site record. I'm interested in you knowing all the background of free history and the local tribes, you know you're going to get that when you're there and if you get the opportunity to write a report, but as a lower level you really the nuts and bolts of how to be a field archaeologist and that you can hike all day long, and you can identify artifacts and site types and then know how to measure them and record them. So if you have that experience than the crew chief, you know, have you supervised people at all how do you work with people, and, and that starts to get into the, oh I can write a report I can write a summary of what we did. I can write daily notes I pay attention to people and, and maybe a little bit of that background of how to, how to do the research, especially like pre field research like you know how to draw maps or GIS to determine what sites are already in the project area that you're going to have to go to and then how do you write it up at the end. Yeah that's great. What else are you all looking for like feverishly writing notes go ahead. I think it's interesting you know she, we said we're not. We're not looking for your intimate knowledge of pre history or something like that right and I think that's a really good point. We're kind of taking it for granted that you come with basic knowledge of priest or of archaeology and and the topics that are covered in an archaeological education. Often we're going to be asking you for knowledge specifically of compliance with 106 you know with skills in we're going to be asking you questions about, you know, consultation experience with Native Americans experience in dealing with difficult situations. And, and, and really kind of getting trying to get an idea for, for how for the skills that you have in a compliance setting and dealing with the things that you have to do to deliver a project or something like that specifically for cow trans I'm saying here to deliver a project in a compliance setting. So you know we're not going to be asking you say hey we're in Sacramento give us a detailed history of the material culture in the delta or something like that right we're looking much more to the compliance side. That being said, it's still really really important to have that information on hand and not to let it lapse, because once you are hired, you know, once you are working here. And you're doing compliance compliance once you're eventually getting to say sending effect assessments or something like that to the to the California ship. It gets it's to be able to show, say archaeological effects, you really have to connect that to the academic stuff that you're learning right an archaeological site, or a building. I assume most people here probably in archaeology, but so I'll stick to that and that's my, my wheelhouse to an archaeological site has significance right we're defining our effect which is a legal term to the ability of that archaeological site to show significance which is often data, which is now connected to your academic education to your education right to your understanding of pre history, your understanding of the archaeology, you need to be able to do up to have up to date knowledge of the topics of the themes of the research questions that are relevant to that analysis. So, while when we're hiring we're not going to be specifically asking you that stuff. It will still come into play. Yes, Susan, please. Yeah. I'm still in school raise my hand right. Really in just a follow up. What was said was before which is really great. I kind of like thought about what to put in the resume. In the sense that many of the jobs, especially the federal you go in USJ jobs and you just click the boxes of what you qualify for. You can do attachments. to your application and that's where I thought that you could bring out your unique qualities in the resume. What I'm thinking is that if you're just coming out of courses and stuff is there's coursework related to the position that you're applying for, like for the federal jobs with federal regulations, cultural resource management, field schools, make mention of that. If it's something that is out of state or unfamiliar, give yourself a couple of sentences to explain what it was and how long you spent there. Sometimes there's a two week field school sometimes there's a three month field school. So take the opportunity to give a little bit more meat to what you're putting in your resume for field schools. One thing to remember that does take into consideration, especially just coming out of school is volunteer opportunities. If you do actually volunteer for field school, or for not school but for for foundation or for any type of historical society, put that in volunteer experience does come into play when considering these positions. And also if you have any writing examples, just like Lynn was saying, is that when you go through sometimes with field tech, you kind of what if you want to advance with your career, having those examples of critical planning, having that foundation of being able to convey both kind of the technical as well as theoretical points in your writing. So if you have reports, your thesis that sort of thing attach it, touch it and the other thing I thought to be another thing to remember that you're putting into your resume are presentations, if like with the SCA, or you attend the essay, even the attendance itself, but then when you're attending these archaeological societies and especially when you're giving a presentation, because that shows us that you have experience in public speaking, which many times when you go through your career in archaeology, you're going to present to the public, as well as talking to tribes. So those kind of things that not just are in your coursework but those unique qualities that bring out what you feel would be most contributing to the position you're applying for. I definitely agree with Susan definitely want to see that you've had a field school that preferably would cover all aspects of archaeology, including you know survey as well as excavation I mean that's definitely great to see on an incoming resume. In addition to that one piece of advice for when, especially at parks when you're applying is typically for the application we put in a duty statement. And I definitely recommend paying very close attention to that duty statement there's going to be kind of key words throughout it that the duty statement is going to describe what your duties will be. So make sure that you craft any sort of written response if there is a written response for that application or your resume to highlight and show that you have the experience with those specific job requirements. You know sometimes I see people who look like really qualified candidates. But they don't they don't pay attention that duty statement and don't include the details in that application and you know, like any agency there's it's not just the cultural resources folks who are making the determination on who gets hired. It's also admin, you know people who aren't cultural resource specialists so if you if you don't like really frame your application to match that duty statement sometimes it doesn't, you know, get passed through the appropriate channels so that's just a bit of advice on that Yeah, I would like to also second what Darren just called out at PG&E when you apply for a job, it's going to actually go to HR. It does not come directly to the cultural resource department and there's going to be people in HR and they look for keywords. So you need to make sure to craft your resume your whatever you're submitting so that it clearly shows if the job says you need five years experience make sure it shows five years experience like make sure that whatever is required for the job description is clearly laid out and it's in there and it's easy to find. Because like I said, what they're going to do is they're going to take a subset of applicants and they're, they're going to forward it on to the hiring panel. And so we're not, we don't get to see all of the people we can't say oh you know what I know this person is qualified and they actually left that out that's, we're not even going to know you applied. So do pay attention to the job postings and the job descriptions and make sure that you're addressing all the necessary requirements and demonstrating that. Besides PG and there's a lot of other utilities that hire there's a lot of cities and counties there's a lot of actual agencies beyond the big state parks or federal force or whatnot that have cultural resource specialist. So, depending on what that agency's job is also to your resume to that when I applied for PG and I made sure to call out every linear project I'd ever worked on every transmission line every you know things that show that I understood things that were long and cross multiple jurisdictions you know I really tried to highlight so make sure you highlight experience in your resume to for the job that you're applying for. At PG&E, when we hire. It's, you know that our roles are pretty complex in that we have times when we are doing all the internal stuff I do reviews all the time so you do have to have a strong fundamental knowledge of how to do archaeology what sensitivity is where what warrants going out and doing field work what's you know all of this stuff and then on the other hand we also have to look at what our consultants are providing us right and so when you get hired at PG&E, you're expected to have kind of enough evidence that you can look at something and say is this adequate right can I take this deliverable those hand to me and then can I then go over to the agency that I am asking the permit from that we're going to go and do work on the the federal or state agency and say hey here's here's my evidence that PG&E is in compliance with all the necessary cultural resource loss. So you have to have enough background to see if something kind of passes the SNF test so to speak right what is it adequate is it enough. Sometimes it can be too much right like there is going way too far for a poll replacement on a slope of over 35% right it's isn't there's not necessarily sensitivity there depending on the context. I would also demonstrate project management because you're going to have a large workload organization skills even if you don't have a lot of experience like show show that you can organize in interviews in your resume show that you have organization skills and make sure your or your resume is organized we've I've seen some in the last few years where it's like people just like yelled at me in a single paragraph right. And so when I'm looking to hire somebody. It doesn't give me confidence in their communication skills or their organization skills in a job that can be very fast paced very quick turnaround. We're helping to ensure critical infrastructure is maintained and in compliance. So those are those are some things and then if you can get budgetary experience because you're also expected to cut contracts to manage budgets, going back to actually having some practical experience in the industry. So the idea of actually how much something costs to do. Those are all key skills that we kind of look for that you know there is and then in addition to the compliance like we really want people to understand that their means is to an end. And a lot of times with people, especially coming out and young in their careers I was like it too I didn't really understand what my why I was doing my job why I had a job. Your understanding with that end is really improves the product and you're deliverable because you understand your level of effort what needs to go into it. What the compliance piece that's really driving us to do that cultural resource management work. These are all golden golden tips. Of course you know folks don't get discouraged because none of the folks speaking had all of that stuff immediately right away. I mean archaeologists are not born were created. It's great to have all these things but it takes a while, you know everyone here, definitely examples of many years of persistent instead fast work that's how they got to this level so don't get discouraged right away when they're saying that you need all those things. These are the things that they would like for you to have and you have your entire life to gain those skills right. I love all that stuff. You know, if anyone, if everyone's okay I have another question to add because in the background here academia universities are undergoing like a transformation and it's not cool like transformers into some you know awesome jet. It's more like, you know, seismic shifts like you see in the disaster movies. And one of the things that we're trying to figure out is how we can prepare students to be able to work with all of y'all. So, one of the questions that we asked in the email is, you know, where do you see academia, doing a good job. And where do we need some work there's some folks in here, myself, you know that are teaching students to work for the university. We'd love to know how we can make things better. So, you know what what does academia need to fix what do we need to do. And what are some of the things that we're already doing. Well, I mean you can. You start with one of the things that we need to do. And then if you have any breath left at the end what are the positive things where you can start with a positive or go to negative so you know what do you need us to do to help you all out. Well I think like a lot of people have chimed in already is the regulatory side of things, you know me as an undergrad at UC Davis. I mean, I maybe in my aunt three intro to archaeology, there was a little bit, you know, maybe a half a day couple hours on regulatory compliance and what the laws are that covered what we do in CRM. So, I really had to learn that on the fly. And luckily, I worked for companies that were willing to send me to trainings, 106 trainings, go training those sorts of things to pick it up as I went along in my career but I definitely think that it would benefit undergrad students to have a foundation in why CRM exists, what what's the regulatory background and legal background and justification for what we do. I totally second that is, you know, that's, I think that's what I never had in my training and is in grad school, never anyone discussing that compliance aspect but also important. So the analytical aspect of section 106 and the different decision making that goes into something and the kind of analytical process in terms of say determining an effect or working with a consulting party working with the tribe. So understanding that particular action that needs to be taken. So really understanding the, you know, the decisions and the negotiations and discussions that go into that. You know, so as much as an academia that case studies that can be taught or examples, documents that laid out, like a memorandum of things to look together, seeing the pieces that went into play with that. Those kind of things like you know the advisory council in the search preservation always has examples on their side of things to look at. You have examples of programmatic agreements to look at you can see the decision points of federal agency, or another agency that Caltrans might have in terms of their analysis that they go through. It's always important, you know, we sometimes get people applying for jobs or interviewing for jobs that can't even explain the process and what they would go through and the thoughts behind what they would need to do. So those, that would be a big, you know, good teaching skill a lot of case studies and examples. This is this book that always comes to mind so it's really cool. It's a great book and I always plug it for people and the teaching classes. It's a book called where the lightning strikes by Nabokov. And it's a really interesting book about case studies working with Native Americans. And you know, particularly a cultural resources aspect so it's a, it's one I always plug. I think it's good for these kind of bigger thought processes of how to take views into play but also the, you know, the action the federal agency might need to take or might be wanting to take. And that process that goes that goes with that. So really, there's a lot of thought I think anyone here can works and cultural resources and compliance it's not, it's not cutting dry all the time. There's a lot of parties that play and then thoughts that come into that process. I'll piggyback off that actually I agree completely and something I think that that it would help to start learning early in, especially as part of your education is the appropriate approaches to technical writing. And I'll try not to go off on a billion tangents like I did in my last answer, but brevity and concise arguments in technical writing are extremely important. So when you're learning your education, you're focusing on content and cool stuff. And but as David said when you get to a compliance side. What you're trying to do is translate that specifically into where that rubber hits the road when it comes to, you know, your effects and or 106 being able to translate that effectively based both on the the academic content, and how that translates to the legal language and how you might have to translate that for other people. Right when you're dealing say with with descendant groups that that don't speak in 106 language or something like that, the ability to, to, to briefly and concisely put that argument on paper in the appropriate reports and in the appropriate context is just invaluable it just saves a lot of time and if you can demonstrate that you are able to do that. It goes a long way. And I'll add to the plug on that for the learning the section 106 process, a good little book to start with this just by Thomas King, the federal planning and historic places the 106, the section 106 process. And just a great overview and he helped write the law so not many people know it better than he does. But, yeah, learning that, you know as you get through the just how to do field work and writing up just basic reports and yet the next thing we go into is what is the full section 106 process, and then how does it interact with other people. And that's basically the National Environmental Protection Act or NEPA, and learning how to write that figuring out effects, whether you have an adverse effect versus a no effect. Can you do things with the insights or not, and how do those projects affect that sites national register eligibility. So what. Get on to the national register knowing that, and then knowing what would affect that site. It's really what I deal with on a day to day basis and is going to help you throughout your career the more you can understand how those laws interact with each other. And then the writing I think the academic part and getting the detailed part and learning how to write concisely is going to help you go a long way. If I can interject just I'm just thinking that. And don't mind there's a cat that goes by every once a while. I'm not working. Yay. That one of the successes and advocate and what I would advocate that the in the academic setting in the anthropology department is theory and field that that's that what I'm thinking is another very old ancient joke coming from long ago. And we do and CRM is compliance not science. However, if you have a foundation of archeological theory that the history of archeological theory how it's evolved over time. In conjunction to how our field methods have evolved over time, both technically and just how we interact, what was done, you know, 20 plus years ago, and how people are doing surveys and now we have tribal monitors you know those things did not exist in the past, they weren't thought of or considered. So having that good archeological theory back foundation, as well as field methods in the sense that if you are able to do a full pledge field school that incorporates, you know, full scale excavation is taking the opportunity now because when you go into when it's working it's much quicker that's really thing it's abbreviated that's really thing. So those four in the academic sense if it could be transitioned to say okay here's the academic foundation. This is the application of our this is how it's used for cultural resource management for fulfillment of our federal regulations. I think that having that transition to archeological theory into its application with compliance with cultural resource laws and policies is a great showing that demonstration of how the foundation serves and what you're doing in the continuing future. The one big thing I would advocate is in the teaching of the federal regulations and also tribal relations to as much as possible, invite tribal representatives to come and speak, because they will give you a totally different perspective. It and what I'm thinking is that if that's not possible to reach out and see whether there's events, or maybe you can attend a tribal council that's really thing that those opportunities now that when you're in and just graduating from university or the prime times to start learning how to interact with tribes in a respectful way so that when you are in a position, working for an agency or a private firm, you have that foundation. I came from the southeast where especially in Florida there's not a lot of tribes, and I went from there to Oregon with there are a lot of December tribes, and I had a big learning curve to overcome that sort of thing. And it's been very fun but I'm just thinking the exposure that you have now to December tribes, their outlook, their attitude and also how they interact with agency is extremely valuable. I couldn't second that harder, by the way, that's such a great point. You know, I, when I had the benefit of, of getting thrown right into the private side doing fieldwork and a lot of that was monitoring, even though monitoring really should be done by the most experienced people often it's done by the least experienced people, because it's, it's kind of grueling. I had the opportunity to stand next to a lot of Native Americans and hear their opinion on opinions on a lot of what was going on. When I then went on to say get my master's degree. We learned a lot about how important it was to include tribal perspectives to expand the theory that we were, that we were developing to try to include other perspectives one thing it didn't include was a whole lot of talking to Native Americans so we kind of were going we're, you know, we're hurtling down tracks, right without realizing whether it's tracks that the people were studying care about. So it's so it from from you know you're from Berkeley standpoint to facilitate that interaction is just going to be, it would be so beneficial and it would be beneficial when you're coming to getting hired as well. I'm just being able to say that you've had that interaction. And actually Susan what you were saying brought up another thing and I'm sorry please just somebody put up their hand and tell me to stop talking at any given point but you were talking about method field methods right and those translating appropriately. And I wanted to second that to and say that when you're teaching theory when you're teaching field methods say in a field school to students, one of the best things you can do is make a clear connection that those methods are meant to do a certain thing. When we are designing our field studies right and we get a consultant field say that says it's go it's supposed to fulfill this action right or that's supposed to fulfill this need this need to know what, you know, what part of a site is going to be intersecting with this part of the project or something that pretty often will get studies that are not designed in a way that actually fulfills that need. You know they haven't given thought to how deep how deep something is going there's their their sampling methods whether that's a sufficient sample to actually be able to know what's happening right. The difference between a 10 centimeter auger and a one by one gets you a much different sample right so so connecting those those field methods that you're teaching to the goals that they're attempting to fulfill is would be is really critical. It's all great stuff to hear. So you know there's a couple of things I wanted to make sure that we have enough time to go into rooms, so that folks can, you know, hear more on a closer, you know closer space. But I also want to make sure that people in the audience have space to ask the questions that they want to ask that are for everyone right and so, you know, we've got one here in the discussion. And I think, you know, maybe for like the next 10 or 15 minutes or so will address questions from the general audience and then maybe Sarah can set up some breakout rooms for folks to meet with the audience in a you know a smaller space where people can have a conversation. Right now you know I've got one question but if you're in the audience you've got another question that we haven't asked yet. Feel free to type it into the chat box. Okay, are there any agencies that do lab work. Yes, at parks we have a lab here in Sacramento, and they definitely do lab work and they take volunteers, as well as the possibility for getting seasonal work for new students so definitely something worth looking into. We have a makeshift lab, but maybe doesn't even qualify so it's only for small, very small projects. I think we have to rely on state parks when when we have a real project in house. Unfortunately Caltrans relies almost entirely on the private side for lab processing. We're trying to set up a lab here in Sacramento for specific projects to aid in you know, getting experience for folks that are hired without much lab experience and the like but we just don't have a lot of capacity capacity for lab. We used to, but when we expanded that kind of was one of the first things that got contracted out. So from the Forest Service side while we sometimes hold our own collections we don't do a lot of lab work we might do a little bit. More we're going to apply that lab work out in the field in site recordings and evaluations of sites in the field. Most of our lab work is going to be coming from a CRM company on a big project. And those are kind of coming in here faster. So then building on that lab work question is there a veterans curation program that does lab work, provide opportunities for veterans out there. I know of the program. There is a veterans program to teach curation and, but I, I don't know of it personally and we might tap into that if we have that need, but we're not doing that a lot. It's not on the Forest Service side. Yeah, I'll try to find that connection I do know the program that you're talking about it's you know an award winning program. But I'm new to California. So I wasn't sure if there was also a branch that happening here in the state. I'll see if I can find that while folks are in breakout rooms. We've got a couple more questions. What drew these what drew. Does anyone want to respond to what caused you to focus your career in agency work over academia or CRM I mean some folks have talked about that process but why agency work over CRM or academia. For me, you know, I mentioned earlier that it's for me it's been really great to see a project from conception to execution and a lot of times in CRM you kind of you do your piece and then you don't forget to see what actually happens to it you just kind of submitted and it goes away. Also, because we are organized regionally, I have a territory that I assist in managing so I have to send the communities that I get to build relationships with I have agency partners I get to build relationships with and so you get to build like it's those relationships you get to build and help manage and assist with that's really fulfilling for me versus when I was in CRM and just bouncing around doing a survey here or an exhibition there and standing in my report moving on to the next thing. Security for me. If you go that long doing seasonal gigs or working on call. There's, there's an appeal to agency work. My argument was or might my motivation was similar to that stability. When I was in the private side I was working up and down the state and sometimes in Oregon and Nevada, and you kind of had to. It was a lot a lot of field time, a lot of working in away from home where his agency offered a lot more of the ability to to you know work closer to yeah that breaking into the shovel bomb life and moving all around and not knowing when your next job's coming or how long the one job you're on is going to stick around and going company to company that was really hard for me and I found that, you know, being in one spot even if it was for six months was was really nice and knowing I was going to that paycheck and then. I always find the terms funny you know I'm a federal archaeologist and but and I really manage the resource I see it for the long term I see it not just for one project for but for the 600 projects that might happen on that site. Well I'm working here and I could stay here for 20 years. I really feel like I'm managing that resource versus we talked about CRM and cultural resource management companies who do the one one and gone you know one project and then they leave. So I really do like to see a site and be able to manage it and protect it over the long run rather than that quick few. I'm kind of the same way, getting to manage resources in that Orville region is a big deal. Over the past four years I've had an opportunity to yeah really get a handle on kind of the regional archaeology, as well as just which sites are most important to the tribes and you know all of that it's. Yeah, it makes a big difference and you have a more vested interest in those resources as well for some personal value professional value to the job. Yeah, to those reasons it was always my dream of working for a federal agency that had land that was you know those idea of managing resources and looking at resources so, you know, I didn't get that but now I get to work with agencies that know your resources well so I'm always appreciative of people at the at the agencies like Rylan and folks in the Forest Service that that know their resources and know when some action that I'm part of is going to impact those resources and you know that they're managing them well. It's always great to work with those agencies. Yeah, and I'm going to go ahead and add on the stability was a big thing for me to I had two kids at the time she young children at the time and so PG&E offered me great benefits and stability, and actually I'm going to go back and I put PG&E's job link in the chat earlier, we will be hiring at least three news CRS this year. And we have levels that start, we've got like four different levels of CRS that work for PG&E the associate starts with two to three years experience and then the journey starts at four to six years and it goes up from there. So these opportunities will be coming up and PG&E all the CRS are actually part of a union so we're members of the engineers and scientists of California so our jobs are negotiated and protected. And you might also working for an agency, at least if you're idealistic, coming out of undergrad and I think I've maintained this pretty well over the years, believe that you can affect change from the inside. And I think it's true to some extent you can. You have to, yeah, put up a pretty good fight internally sometimes and make good arguments and convince engineers and project proponents that doing something is worth it. And at the end of the day that can feel pretty good. I will add that if you really love excavation and excavation is what you really want to do, probably being an agency archaeologist is not the place to be. We don't do very much excavation, or we get contractors to do it for us. I was just going to follow up this season that rather than thinking one is better than the other. It's what your desire or what phase that you're in. At that point in your career, in the sense of getting fieldwork experience that there's actually shovel bones.org is a job posting site archaeological fieldwork.com that's another traveler, you know travel the US travel the world. If that's what you're the point that you add there it comes the time that or you may or may not have a time that you want to settle in one place, considering federal agencies state agencies also usually when you want to stay one place you want to add on to your responsibilities and your roles as dealing with the archaeology so there comes in the consideration of advancement of degrees, master's degrees and also kind of like if you want to go private versus public there's pros and cons, each one I was going to kind of follow up and say that in working in the private sector which have worked both here in the West and then also the East Coast when you have private developers there is sometimes that conflict of interest where they want to build their big hotel. And if you say wait a minute we got to do a bunch of stuff for it's not possible, there is that kind of conflict. But there's the same type of conflict with agencies but the one nice thing with working with agency you are advocating for compliance with the regulations you are interacting with the descendant groups. So that level of comfort of being able to advocate on behalf, where I think of it being an advocate for the cultural heritage, you have that much more opportunity so just think of it what stage of growth that you want to would be a career to participate. Those are excellent answers I appreciate everyone's response and it does seem like you know I personally I did cultural resources for a long time this is my first government job for Cal. And so I can definitely see the benefits to both you know you do a lot of archaeology in cultural resources but it is fragmented and it's you know project to project and 10 days later you could be fully done with your piece of that whole thing. And then it goes on to spend a month excavating it, and you never get to see what happens next so, you know, I definitely hear that. So, I wanted to go into rooms but there's a question that probably, you know, would require its own entire talk here about having a master's degree. It was posted here in the discussion, and I will I want to, you know, share this here now. Even if that means that some of our time for networking is cut short because this matters a lot for students, you know going to graduate school first versus getting a job and then going to graduate school or just getting a job and never going to graduate school I mean this is something that I personally had to deal with and think about quite a bit. And I'm quite sure everyone all panelists, this is something that was on everyone's mind. And the question goes like, does having a master's degree with a field school make you a better candidate to work at state parks for a service I'm just gonna say or any agency, or is it just good enough to have a field school and a bachelor's degree. Starting now, just having a bachelor's in a field school. I didn't go back to get my master's until 10 years into my career. I was in the background of how to do the field do field work and write reports, and then realized that I hit a ceiling where that I needed my master's degree, but to start out. Sometimes I would actually say when I look at a resume if somebody just went bachelors to master's degree, and has very little field work or very little, or little or no experience. That's a warning sign for me I'd like to rather see more experience than a straight bachelor's to master's degree. Short and quick. Yeah, field school at bachelor's degree is definitely sufficient to get into the entry level positions at parks. And you can work your way up with just a bachelor's but eventually like Lynn said you will hit a ceiling there will be, if you have broader, you know, goals within your career become like a supervisor or something you're really going to want that master's This is just to clarify kind of requirements and stuff like that, especially with federal work is that it is in your stage of career but to know that to go into a federal position as a professional archaeologist, which includes like the pay grade and all that stuff. Here's what's called the Secretary of Interior standards for professional qualification column SOI standards. You can look at you can Google it Secretary of Interior standards qualifications for archaeologists. It is required to have at least a, the minimum of having a graduate degree in archaeology anthropology associated fields, at least one year full time experience at least four months of supervised fields and analytical experience. And sometimes it's added on to lab experience to so do know that there's kind of qualifications. You do hit a ceiling on what you can do project wise and how you can advance in both faith federal and assuming also with state agencies on you know how you can advance with the graduate degree. That trans is a bit of a different animal with the program with the program level PA that we have to be able to do the full suite of analysis and have the full suite of responsibilities, a graduate degrees is pretty much required at this point. To we have, you know, when we hire we have an environmental planner and an associate environmental planner position level. We tend to prefer associate environmental planners, though when we do put out new positions. We will consider environmental planners, but you'll see you can you can look at our qualification or the qualifications required to do the full amount of work under our PA. And it does require a master's degree. That being said, we'll hire people without master's degrees but a cow transit is definitely a huge plus. I feel like that was a great response to that question. Okay, so now the magic begins right so normally we would have cookies and all that other stuff but I mean I guess everyone can imagine that they have cookies and, you know, tea or whatever in front of you. But I'd like to make sure that there's enough time for the folks that are here to be able to meet some of you all personally in these smaller breakout rooms. But before we go into the breakout rooms I want to thank everyone for your time. And sharing this kind of this is the kind of stuff that students don't normally get in in in our classes. And so this is absolutely invaluable. And it's also coming from people who are excellent and experienced and who have lived this pathway. So, you know, when you're a student you see us professors, quite regularly, but you don't see the other side of the, you know, 90% of archaeologists that are in universities. And so this is invaluable experience and each year I've been really proud to be part of this thing that the archaeological research facility has put together. And some of you folks have come in and given talks before and I just want to thank you sincerely for sharing your time and your experience and your stories your origin tales with us all. If you come back again I won't make you do the origins again because we recorded it right, unless you have more embellishments you remember some other facet that we never got to hear about, you know, that's great. But, you know, folks are hiring there's students who are eager they want to get work, and I want to make sure that there's enough time here for them to talk with you all but thanks for staying here on Friday afternoon, and sharing your your careers with us. So you'll take over on creating the rooms I know I'm a yep I have the rules created, and I just want to thank you bill as well for moderating that you did a fabulous job and thank you for taking time out on your Friday afternoon and also to all the panelists on behalf of the RF I'd like to thank you all for coming and giving your time here today as well. And for people listening in, we're going to will copy the chat and share all those links that people have been putting in the chat so people in the future can watch the video and get access to the those links from the chat as well. So again right now, I've created breakout rooms, just with each person has their own room you can pop into a room you can come back and pop into another room so if the panelists would just hang around for a little while. You make it a couple of different visitors over the next 15 minutes or so. But after that we can all just, it's as if we ate our cookies and said goodbye so I want to thank you now for coming and I'm going to open up. Thank you to thank you so much I just want to pop in and say thanks I'm Christine has started the director and I've enjoyed every minute of this it's really been extremely informative so I hope all the students, the youth, the hot hires are getting a lot out of this too I'm sure they are so thanks a lot and have fun. Have a good weekend.