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 since April, 1977, 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 35 years. I am the Dealer Chairman for the Annual Show.

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. Over the last ten years I have increased my collection of Texas minerals. While I always had some interest in Mexican minerals, particularly since local dealer Collectors Choice imported many 1000s of specimens, over the past 7 years I have concentrated on obtaining more specimens from that country, and now have several hundred from different localities.

I am an experienced mineral photographer with over 40 years experience photographing minerals. I am now working with digital images using a Nikon D7200 and MicroNikkor 105mm and 60mm lenses. 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 10 years, including 6 years of postcards. I have also done the photography for the 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 Show Posters.

In 2000 I started a mineral business, Truscon Minerals, which remains active today primarily doing local mineral shows. My website, trusconminerals.com is now up and running. Future sales on the internet will be through auction sites managed by dedicated web services. Truscon Minerals is also on Facebook and Instagram, showing minerals for sale.

An active field collecting interest currently is Texas petrified wood, which is reasonably abundant within 100 - 200 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 my wife Sigrid cut a cabochon 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.

Since my wife Sigrid is a lapidary as well as a mineral collector, I have begun collecting agate in South Texas and bouquet agate in West Texas. In 2010 I found a 110 lb. moss agate in the Davis Mountains that has produced some nice slabs. We have made numerous collecting trips to the Davis Mountains for agate, most recently 5 trips in 2021-2023 to the newly opened Kokernot o6 ranch in Brewster/Jeff Davis, where we have collected 100s of pounds of fortification, plume, sagenite and moss agate. As a shop foreman at the Houston Gem and Mineral Society I regularly cut nodules and slabs from our finds. I am setting up a home workshop to polish some of our best finds. I regularly post the results of my cuts on the Facebook group Texas Rockhounds. A search of my name there will bring up the photos. I also serve as a "Group Expert" on the site, using my knowledge of Texas geology and mineral occurrences to educate the numerous new rockhounds discovering the joys of rocks, minerals and fossils.

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, the 2008 Tucson Show, the 2017 Tucson Show, the 2018 East Coast Show, the 2019 Denver Show and the 2020 Tucson Show. I have also posted photos from the 2017 Tucson Show Midwest Minerals exhibits. We attended the 2020 Tucson Show where I was a guest exhibitor, and I have posted photos from that show also. I also have posted mineral photographs from my collection and others. The photos are organized into albums so that it is easier to find specimens you might want to look at. For example one album is "Mexican Minerals in My Collection". Please visit if you want to see my photos, since not all of them have been posted to Mindat. This site also has photos of my HGMS club activities and petrified wood field trips. I am the moderator of the Houston Gem and Mineral Society group pool on Flickr.