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Hi, all. I've posted on here a few times since last summer. My name is Brian Montgomery. As a kid I was very into rocks and fossils, and would collect as often as I could. The passion dwindled as I grew older, but I would occasionally take my son out to collect trace fossils in creeks around the Midwest. I was also a professor of philosophy from 2012-2019, with appointments in both Illinois and Texas. Unfortunately, the academic job market in the humanities is moribund, so my time teaching came to an end near the start of the pandemic. After that I became a stay at home father up until remote learning ended last fall. Around August of last year I contacted Sam Heads, the only paleontologist currently working at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with questions about a crinoid mortality plate my family had recently found on a trip to Sugar Creek in Crawfordsville, IN. He invited us to visit the university's new paleontology lab, and my family became fast friends with the lab's staff. Around the same time, he submitted a grant proposal that would have me hired to go through thousands of Dominican amber samples the university acquired in the 1950s. Unfortunately, the funding for that position never materialized. Weeks later I had agreed to do volunteer work there only for me to find out the day before I was to start that my soon-to-be boss had found a way to pay me. The money is less than half of what I made teaching, but after being unemployed since the start of the pandemic I wasn't going to worry about that. Instead of working on the amber, my job involves transferring specimens shipped from the department's annex to its new laboratory. My first few days were dedicated to The Worthen Collection, type specimens gathered around the Midwest in the 1850s. More recently we came cross some extraordinary mortality plates from the Glass Mountains. They had been sitting in storage for decades, and I've spent the last two weeks collecting every intact specimen I could from them. Today I began separating brachiopods from them into families. Soon, he's going to work with me on further classification. I don't know a lot about paleontology, but I know more than I used to and learn more every day. I'll try to give periodic updates on the job.

I work for the County of Orange in Southern California. Pretty soon, we'll be issuing a request for proposals to prepare fossils and process archaeological materials. I would like to know if it is appropriate to post the RFP here, and if so, which subforum it belongs in. I'm also open to other suggestions of where to post the RFP when it becomes available.

So I am interested in a job that has me doing things like preparing fossils or hunting for them (that might have an open job offer in the next few years). I would appreciate any help you can give me.

The American Geoscience Institute is studying effects of COVID-19 on employment in the Earth sciences. As part of this effort, they have the "Geoscience COVID-19 Survey" at https://www.americangeosciences.org/workforce/covid19 for Geoscientists to participate in. In the distant future will report the results of their research in a webinar, "The Geoscience Workforce: Current Trends and Impacts from COVID-19" on Friday, September 18, 2020. It is at: https://www.americangeosciences.org/webinars/geoscience-workforce-current-trends-and-impacts-covid-19 The American Geoscience Institute also has number of open-access videos related to careers in geology at: https://www.americangeosciences.org/webinars they include: 1. Careers for Geoscientists video, https://www.americangeosciences.org/workforce/ 2. How Consulting Works, American Geoscience Institute, April 2, 2020 https://www.americangeosciences.org/webinars/how-consulting-works 3. A Look at the Current Trends in Geoscience Workforce, November 22, 2019 https://www.americangeosciences.org/webinars/look-current-trends-geoscience-workforce 4. Important Writing Skills for Careers in the Environmental Industry, October 2, 2019 https://www.americangeosciences.org/webinars/important-writing-skills-careers-environmental-industry 5. An Introduction to Professional Writing for Geoscience Careers, April 26, 2018 https://www.americangeosciences.org/webinars/introduction-professional-writing-geoscience-careers 6. Polishing Your Writing Skills for State Government Agency Careers, June 4, 2019 https://www.americangeosciences.org/webinars/writing-skills-for-state-government-agency-careers 7. Understanding Professional Geologist License Requirements: California 2019, May 15, 2019 https://www.americangeosciences.org/webinars/professional-geologist-licensure-requirements-california-2019 8. Professional Geologist Licensure Requirements and the ASBOG National Geology License Examinations, February 13, 2019 https://www.americangeosciences.org/webinars/professional-geologist-licensure-requirements-and-asbog-national-geology-license Yours, Paul H.