Background: College dropout. Worked making chemical reagents for hospital laboratories for about 10 years. A collector for about ten years doing extensive photography of minerals, field collecting, silver picking. Then about 40 years as a wholesale mineral dealer traveling to a number of countries around the world to buy specimens for my business. Author of several articles in the Mineralogical Record and Rocks and Minerals. Am occasionally asked to do lectures. Have a 1000 m warehouse full of rocks. Have a private collection of minerals. About 5000 micros, 5,000+ systematic and rare species (about 3200 species if you believe the labels) which I have given to the University of Arizona. About 8000 display quality specimens. Have been working for the last four years on a computer program to catalog specimens and print labels. I will collect almost any size specimen from micros to large cabinet. However I now have so many specimens that it is often hard to find what I have, so I have actively stopped trying to add to my collection, but if nice specimens run under my nose I will still grab them.

I am one of the many managers here on mindat. Since no one tells us what to do, we all work on mindat in areas that we have an interest in and or feel obligated to oversee. My main interest is the Best Minerals section of mindat and circumstances permitting that is where I would like to spend most of my time. I also keep an eye on Specimen Valuation and the Cleaning and Preparation forums. I have uploaded many pictures of mineral specimens that I have taken over the years of specimens in various museums and private collections as well as pictures of many localities I have dug at or visited during the last 50 years. I am a past president of the Mineralogical Society of Southern California.