I grew up in southwest Colorado where I developed a love of mountains, rocks and nature. But it was cold in Colorado and my dad wanted to retire in Arizona where it was warm! So my family moved to Scottsdale when I was in high school. After graduating from Arizona State University, I got a job as a geologist at the Magma Mine in Superior, Arizona. Magma was an underground, hardrock copper mine. Working there was a fantastic experience and a dream job for a geologist. Going underground everyday was very exciting! Plus it had beautifully crystallized barite, calcite and pyrite. I had never seen such things before and it was there that my interest in mineral collecting began. That was almost 45 years ago. Today, I specialize in Arizona minerals but also have small suites from other localities. In the company of my good friends Dick Morris and George Godas, I did extensive field collecting starting in the mid-1980s. This led to Minerals of Arizona, a small retail mineral business that Dick and I ran for over 30 years. Lastly, I’d note that I enjoy writing about Arizona localities and my experiences collecting them and have authored or co-authored over ten articles for the Mineralogical Record.”