photo taken 11/2003
Odonata of Michigan; Museums Computing and Information Management, Aculeate Hymenoptera behavior.
my license plate!
I'm responsible for collection maintenance, curation, specimen preparation, loans, exchanges and Insect Division computer resources. Since 1996, I have worked more extensively with dragonflies, and considering that we have such a world-class Odonata collection, it's been a good move on my part to be able to work more effectively with the collection. I also organize the Michigan Odonata Survey. If you are interested in dragonflies, you'll like the web pages that I have put together. I edit the MOS newsletter Williamsonia, which has information about dragonflies in Michigan and the Great Lakes region.
I am the former editor (11 years) of the Great Lakes Entomologist, the journal of The Michigan Entomological Society. I served as President of the society in 1987 and 2001. I am still on the governing board, where my role is that of webmaster for the MES.
Insect Division
Museum of Zoology
1109 Geddes Avenue
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079
phone: 734-647-2199
fax: 734-763-4080
email
1979. B.S. Syracuse University
and the SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry.
1981. M.S. SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry and Syracuse
University.
Photography has become a bigger interest for me, which has probably had something to do with being diagnosed with glaucoma in April 2000, and a talk by David Arhrenholtz on macro-photography. The glaucoma is under control, but it made me stop taking certain things for granted, such as my sight. My mentor in photography is Bill Brudon, a renowned (and retired) illustrator that worked in the Museum of Zoology for many years and then in the Medical School's Dept. of Anatomy. Collecting vintage cameras is also a lot of fun, and I have learned a lot about the Argus Company, which made many hundreds of thousands of cameras right here in Ann Arbor, MI. I also serve on the board of the Michigan Photographic Historical Society.
Natural history and Flower Gardening are among my other interests.
My very first home computer was a Macintosh 512K in early 1986. Prior to that, I had various exposures to mainframe systems at Syracuse Univ. and the UM, as well as experience with the Victor CP/M 86 systems and IBM PC's that we used here in the Insect Division. When I first saw a Mac in use, it was late 1985, and as soon as I saw one in action I knew that it was the computer for me. I have never regretted that decision, and I have been an ardent Mac-evangelist since then. I am mostly self-taught, except for a Unix class at Washtenaw Community College in the spring of 1998.
I'm proficient in Filemaker, Microsft Word, Photoshop, and some other applications. As the role of the LSA-IT has grown, I no longer keep up with all of the latest and greatest network tools, etc., and instead try and do my real job as collections manager, focusing on the programs I need to do my various tasks.
Computing Projects
Designed and implemented a FileMaker Pro database for our specimen loans. Prior to 1988, they were not computerized. Since then, all old loans have also been included in the database.
Designed an implemented a number of other Filemaker Pro database projects, including the Orthoptera Specimen Database(150,000+ records), Aquatic Insects Database, Michigan Odonata Database (25,000 records), and other smaller database sets.
NAIC - The North American Insect Collection Hypercard stack. This was a HyperCard-based database of North American Insect Collections. I haven't updated it in some time, but it is still available from the umich archives, and some other sources. Maybe I'll make it available from our web page.
WebMastering
I have set-up and maintain two Macintosh-based web servers:
insects.ummz.lsa.umich.edu - The insect Division's web server; and www.ummz.umich.edu, the UMMZ's web server. Both have been going since 1995, and get at least 6 million hits per year combined.