I've been a mineral collector since I was 14, in 1962. I started in New Jersey and was a member of the Trailside Mineral Club while in High School and college. I obtained geology degrees at St. Louis University (BS in Professional Geology) and Indiana University (MA in Geology) and lived in Kansas City and St. Louis before settling in Houston in 1977. I was a member of the Kansas City Gem and Mineral club and the St. Louis Gem and Mineral Society. I've been a member of the Houston Gem and Mineral Society for 30 years, and currently hold the positions of Mineral Section Chairman and School Collections Chairman. I'm active on the club show committee and have run the swap area at the annual show for over 25 years.

My collecting interests are many and varied, but in the past few years I've concentrated on collecting prehnite from the East Coast of the USA and worldwide localities and also stilbite, apophyllite and heulandite. In the past I've assembled collections of Viburnum Trend minerals, Pea Ridge Mine minerals and Arkansas minerals. I also collect calcite, fluorite and occasionally galena.

I am an experienced mineral photographer with over 25 years experience shooting slides of minerals. I am now working with digital images. My photographs have been published in Mineral News, Rocks and Minerals and The Mineralogical Record. They also appear in the privately published Collecting Arkansas Minerals by Art Smith. I have done the show advertisement photography for the HG&MS for the last 5 years, including 4 years of postcards and this year's trifold flyer. I have also done the photography for the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Show Posters.

In 2000 I started an online mineral business, Truscon Minerals, which remains active today but at a reduced level from past years.

My only active field collecting interest currently is Texas petrified wood, which is reasonably abundant within 100 miles of Houston. This wood is primarily Eocene and Miocene age and most is not of cutting quality, though they make good display pieces. An exception is snakewood, a rare softwood with a unique grain structure. I have found several pieces of this rare wood (about 1 for every 1000 pieces I've picked up or collected) and this year my partner Sigrid cut a cabachon from one and had it wire wrapped for my 60th birthday. While I usually wear prehnite to mineral club activities, the snakewood piece has now become a regular item around my neck. I like studying the occurrences of Texas petrified wood and understanding the geology of the formations where it is found.

I am active on the photo sharing site Flickr.com under the name stone_singer48. There I have posted mineral photos from The American Mineral Treasures Exhibit and the 2008 Tucson Show. I also have mineral photographs from my collection and others posted. Please visit if you want to see my photos, since I haven't had the time to upload them to mindat, which requires a much more arduous upload. There are photos there of my HGMS club activities and also petrified wood field trips. I am the moderator of the Houston Gem and Mineral Society group pool on Flickr.