This has been so much fun talking to the volunteers. I am not the best interviewer, but so far my subjects have been very patient. This post is about a volunteer I have known for four years but I really haven’t “known” her well. We have been working together more since I have started working at the museum and I have really enjoyed developing our relationship. She is very intelligent and witty. She has a wonderful story and life; I hope I can do it justice.

Janice Brown: Fossil Lab Volunteer

I volunteer because I have a passion for geology and environmental science. I love educating and talking to people about science.

Janice, with fellow volunteer Lenore, doing what she does best, educating the museum visitors.

Janice’s life started in central New York, Syracuse to be exact. She attended North Syracuse High School hoping to be an anthropologist. She had always been fascinated with fossils even though her father hoped she would choose a more lucrative career. Haven’t we heard that before in this field? Early in her college career she attended Morrisville Ag & Tech for two years before heading to Cornell, where she worked as a lab tech in the Food Science department. She worked her way through her bachelors until it was time to get her masters. She was hired in the Microbiology Department of Food Science because of her enormous background she had acquired over the years, not needing to pursue her masters. She won the endowed Chair position of Louis Pasteur Senior Lecturer of Food Science. She stayed at Cornell until she recently retired. She even stayed on for another year and a half until her department found her replacement. And now knowing Janice better, I am sure it was difficult to find someone as passionate and knowledgeable as she. Whenever she would talk about working with the college students, a smile would come over her face. I could understand why she stayed in one place for so long. There is a deep love of what she did; from the students to the science.

           

Janice is not all about work though. She has the same passion for her family as she does for science. She loved talking about her family. Her son Philip has 2 children and her adopted daughter Brenda Lee has a son Dylan, who is often in Janice’s conversation. She had volunteered in Dylan’s 1^st and 2^nd grade classes. Janice talks adoringly about her family, even her 4 legged ones. She has a special place for Golden Retrievers and worked with the SPCA for 3 years as adoption coordinator and foster parent. She does not have Goldens at this time; her last, Dustin, passed not too long ago. But she wanted to let me know her furry family was not restricted to dogs. She has a bookful of funny and endearing stories of her Manx cat Luke. When she is not playing with her grandchildren or volunteering Janice is reading, her fave being Sci Fi, and munching on her favorite food of spicy salsa and chips. With the emphasis on spicy!

Summers are spent at the lake and with family now that she is retired. But when I asked her where would she like to go on her dream vacation she answered that she had already done that. It was to Ireland, which she has been lucky to do twice! She described her first trip as a very intimate one. She was able to stay with a couple she had met at Cornell. All the great places she visited, with real natives, too fun! She would describe it as “really wonderful!” I guess I didn’t know Janice too well, because I was a bit shocked at the story she told me about wanting to visit one of the old pubs. Great story, I will let her tell you sometime. Janice has been a treasure to this institution for over 4 years now and with her dedication she has shown over the years, I truly hope she will stay with us for a long time. She has volunteered mostly in the Fossil Lab. But it isn’t that simple. She has literally kept that lab going over the years by collecting shale and storing it at her house. She has now taken it on herself to help us update the lab manual in the Discovery Labs. See what I mean about indispensable. I have been recently working with Janice through the Junior Paleontologist Program which is being developed by volunteers at the Museum of the Earth. She has been a great addition to the team. I look forward to her adding her unique talents to the program. She is an unbelievably dedicated person and I have been lucky to be part of her life.

So Janice, Thanks…

 “Science to me is our salvation! We have to get a better handle on what is happening around us.”   Amen to that, Janice.

Welcome back all you Volunteers! I am going to make an effort to update this blog so you will feel more inclined to frequent it and maybe contribute. I know Jaime had hoped to create an online community among all the volunteers and I think she had the right idea. Looking back over my time as a volunteer, one of my greatest enjoyments was to interact with other volunteers. I loved science and I loved the museum setting but I truly loved sharing with other volunteers. When you volunteer at PRI, you often find you are by yourself and, I think, that will eventually diminish your enjoyment. I think you start to lose the attraction to volunteering if you can’t share with others. So I am back to this blog. I am going to be interviewing the volunteers, and maybe the staff, and publish it in the blog. This should accomplish two things. I will get to know each of you better and you will get to know each other and grow as a community. My first victim is Mike Marano. He has been one of my fellow volunteers who have never wavered to help me or the museum when we needed him. Usually we are working at our allotted volunteer jobs so I have never gotten to know him better so now we all will. Sit back and enjoy.

                                         Mike working on the Stegosaurus vertebrae in Prep Lab.

Mike Marano: Prep Lab volunteer. “I volunteer because it lets me do paleontology and educate people.”

Mike was born in Marathon, NY and grew up as the older brother to his 2 brothers and sister. He attended Marathon HS and seemed to always desire a career in Paleontology. But as many of us, he had to pay the bills and spent most of his life working in industry. He worked at Les Strom for 2 years as a laborer, but now he is at BorgWarner in Ithaca. He has worked there for 8 years as a tension assembler. He told me he likes to make everyone tense at work so I guess he is doing his job well. One of the things he has done is write a letter to BorgWarner, as an employee and MotE volunteer, asking for them to support PRI. I have also seen him come in blurried-eyed after a night shift just to sit in the museum to watch-over a new exhibit. Since he officially started in 2008, he has volunteered in almost every capacity for the museum.  He has worked in every Discovery Lab and the Prep Lab. In the Prep Lab, he is our “go-to guy.”  In fact right now he is the head preparator of the Carnegie Loan.  “What is that?” you ask. Well, stop by the Prep Lab Friday mornings and he would love to educate you on all things Dinosaurs and maybe teach you something about the Morrison Formation. As for educating, he has also volunteered to help with school groups and scout troops visiting the museum. He has even gone out of his way to educate a certain volunteer coordinator about synapsids. He also volunteers at remote sites. He was especially helpful at the State Fair. He said he loved talking to State Fair visitors about NY state geology and paleontological history. (and the corndogs and free admission weren’t bad either!)

     When Mike isn’t working or volunteering he stays busy. He of course loves to fossil collect (but who doesn’t) and he also enjoys golf and building models esp. ship, cars and tanks. The last choice stems from a family of Marines. He can talk military history with the best of them. I have learned more about military planes from Mike in an hour than I did all my life.  Music is another of Mike’s passions. He is open to many types but he had to mention a certain guitarist, Desire Bassett, he found on the internet. She is definitely most impressive. I think guitar music might be closest to his heart. When I asked Mike what was favorite food, he quickly answered, “Anything Italian.” Of course, what would you expect coming from someone named Marano?

     “Morocco” was his answer to my question of his dream vacation. Many of you may wonder about that answer but I know where he was going with that. We both just sat in silence shaking our heads for a few moments, thinking about the next great dinosaur discovery that might be coming out of those deserts.  I asked Mike what would he rather be doing than his present job and he quickly said that he would love to be a field paleontologist.  What a surprise! No wonder he is here volunteering. It is great to be able to volunteer somewhere that allows you to do and share your passion!

My last question to him, and believe me he was happy about it, was for him to complete a statement.

“Science, to me, is…. Discovery!”

Way to go Mike, thanks for being my first guinea pig!