I’m currently president of the IAFI-Wenatchee Valley Erratics. I grew up in the Midwest (Rochester, Minnesota). My first knowledge of the Missoula Floods and J Harlen Bretz was in a Glacial Geology course in 1981. I received a B.S. degree in Earth Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls in 1983 and went on to obtain my M.S. degree in Geology from Portland State University in 1986. While at PSU I had a chance to interact with Professor Emeritus Dr. John Elliot Allen who was instrumental in publishing one to the first books on the Missoula Floods “Cataclysms on the Columbia”.
While I was in Portland, Oregon, I began my career as a geologist with the Department of the Interior (USDI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM). In 1988 BLM transferred me to the Wenatchee Field Office as the Area Geologist where I stayed until retiring in 2015. Being located in Wenatchee allowed close proximity to explore features of the late Pleistocene glacial geology, particularly the Ice Age Floods features, especially the Channeled Scabland of eastern Washington.
I worked with the National Park Service and Ice Age Floods Institute on the designation of the “Ice Age Floods-National Geologic Trail” which was authorized as a NPS unit in March 2009. I continue to give numerous talks and lead field trips to educate the public emphasizing the Geology of the Columbia Basin, Ice Age Floods, Channeled Scabland, and glacial geology of the Waterville Plateau.