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.