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NEW ENGLAND MINERAL CONFERENCE
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Don't let the serious demeanor fool you: Jan loves humor, especially that which is understated or ironic. When it comes down to business, she is all business, having been tagged as "the Janinator" by the way she ran local and state track & field meets, yet she's happy to deflect with outlandish humor at the least provocation. She is one of two Oregon State students that in 1978 earned a B.S. in Business Administration, having taken "every science class OSU offered to undergrads" and finally being asked by university President McVicar to graduate so another student could take her spot as an undergrad.
Jan's formal career began in retail management, then shot an erratic trajectory through accounting, foreign export, engineering & quality control for furnishing warships, politics, directing non-profits, business writing and editing, and operations/office management. It is rumored she has been seen on the Professional Bull Riders circuit. She does have a PBR t-shirt and is known to love a good rodeo. Side interests have been travelling, sewing and fiber arts of most any kind, gardening, writing, painting, and cooking. She laments that if her family had "been willing to stop eating and go naked," she could have had 20 more years of life outside of the kitchen and laundry room. Alas, they didn’t. But she now happily finds herself doing only 3 to 4 loads of laundry a week instead of the 34 a week when all the kids were in residence. "We will be cleanly clothed; meals are still optional."
This allows time for travel and her continued pursuit of rocks. Born in Oklahoma, she has lived in Texas, Oregon, and Washington before making the trek to Maine to marry Jeff (brave man). Along the way she's collected things that interest her: beach sand, leaf and shell fossils, obsidian, lava, striped stones, a growing collection of metallics, and quirky as well as phenomenally beautiful things from the Havey. Whenever traveling, she hunts for rock formations that help tell the story of the land she is visiting.
Anywhere you go to find information on Bob Jones, you'll find him described as a mineral legend. In 1935 as a child living in Stratford, Connecticut his family went to the Yale Peabody Museum. He saw a fluorescent mineral display which inspired him to pursue learning more about minerals. Over time his focus shifted to metallics, specifically copper and then lead species.
Bob served as a teacher for over 30 years and continues his support for education. Bob is also a prolific author, penning numerous mineral articles, books and more for mineral magazines and educational publications. He is a long-standing Senior Editor at Rock and Gem Magazine. Bob lives in Arizona and has served for over 40 years on the Tucson Gem and Mineral Society Show Committee.
We are excited about the wealth of knowledge Bob brings with him and to hear his talk about collecting in Connecticut.
You can learn more about Bob's history in these two articles:
Each year we are honored to invite Frank Perham to give us a talk about his mining adventures, and this year is no different. We're never quite sure where the talk will lead, but we know it will be informative and entertaining.
Anyone who is interested in mining pegmatites in Maine will, at some point early on, be instructed to seek out Frank Perham. Of himself, he says "I'm an undergraduate geologist by training, a miner by avocation and a garage owner by necessity, right in that order." Here is a piece from the biography (Frank C. Perham: Adventures in Maine Pegmatite Mining by Karen L. Webber and Raymond A. Sprague) that lets you peak into a window as to who Frank is:
"Frank was born into a mineral family on March 5, 1934. His grandfather, A. C. Perham, started the A. C. Perham Feldspar Quarry and helped establish the West Paris feldspar mill. His father, Stanley Perham, started what would eventually become Perham's Maine Mineral Store in 1919. [Also noted is that his father-in-law was Nestor Tamminen]. Frank cut his teeth on minerals and has always had an interest in pegmatites, particularly lithia-rich pegmatites with tourmaline."
After college at Bates College majoring in Geology with a mid-college stint in the US Army during the Korean War, Frank returned with his wife Mary to West Paris and went to work at his father's store. He made an arrangement with his father to mine the Harvard Quarry for the summer in 1961, and so it began…
His name is synonymous with the Waisanen Mine, the Harvard Quarry, Mt. Mica, and the Dunton Gem Mine. Still actively mining, Frank has recently opened his longest pocket yet. Found at Hayes Ledge, and named the Mother Mary Pocket after his lovely and supportive wife, he has unearthed many beautiful quartz specimens from his mining. As ever, we are excited to have Frank join us at this year's Conference.
Tom began collecting minerals over 65 years ago at Mount Mica when he was just 8 years old. This sparked his long-term interest in minerals.
Tom earned a BS in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1966 and an MS in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in 1968. He worked in that field until for Sanders Associates/ Lockheed Martin/BAE until he retired in 2007.
Although Tom had no formal training in mineralogy or geology, he has created the most comprehensive list of minerals for the State of New Hampshire and created a unique interactive display system for New Hampshire species that easily shows magnified micro crystals.
Tom's presentation will introduce us to the Micromounters of New England. This is a group of mineral collectors that explore the world of minerals through the microscope. They also contribute to mineralogy by studying mineral occurrences in detail that can help our understanding of mineral occurrences where most of us find our cabinet specimens. He will review all the resources and activities of the group that goes far beyond just looking at tiny rocks through the microscope.
Learn more about Tom here: https://www.mindatnh.org/#Biography
 Raymond and Encar |
 May 22, 1946 – April 16, 2019 |
Known author and speaker Mark Ivan Jacobson is first and foremost a geologist-mineralogist specializing in pegmatites. He obtained a BS in mineralogy-geochemistry from Pennsylvania State University in 1973 and a MS in sedimentary geology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1976. After graduate school, he worked for Amoco and Chevron in oil and gas development as an earth scientist, completing 35 years with Chevron before retiring in 2013.
He has published numerous articles on the geology, mineralogy, and mining-collecting histories of pegmatites since 1978 as well as two major books: "Guidebook to the pegmatites of Western Australia (2007)" and "Antero Aquamarines: Minerals from the Mount Antero - White Mountain region, Chaffee County, Colorado (1993)."
In addition, he has written biographies of events and persons, including "The Denver Gem & Mineral Show: A Retrospective," and a colorful biography of early female Colorado Pegmatite Geologist, Margaret B. Fuller Boos.
He has been a consulting editor for Rock & Minerals since 1984 and has previously been president of the Friends of Mineralogy for the Colorado Chapter (2014-2016), and is the immediate past president of the National Friends of Mineralogy (2017-19). In 2017, Mineral News published his article "The Early History of the Himalaya Pegmatite Mine, San Diego County, California," which will be the focus of his talk at our conference this year.
Larry Bull, born in 1948, in Muskegon, MI started collecting nature's treasures and objects from a very young age. These included small pieces of fossil and fulgurites from the beaches and dunes of his hometown and environs. He only recognized these as more than just slag many years later.
Larry is a graduate of Loyola U. of Chicago (1970) and New England School of Law (1977) and was a member of the Massachusetts Bar for forty plus years. He retired April 2018.
He continued to develop his interest and love of natural history by focusing first on fossils and then mineral collecting in the late 1970's. He has been collecting ever since; mostly minerals, as well as many of nature's other treasures and objects. Included in his mineral collecting travels are all of the New England states, as well as NY, NJ, GA, NC, SC, AZ, CO, NM and the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Ontario.
Larry has been a member of several mineral clubs over many years. This includes serving as an officer in the Worcester Mineral Club for over thirty years, as well as several other capacities with the Worcester Club and, he continues his involvement there.
Larry also continues to be active in his hobby as a mineral dealer, "JNL Minerals". He did this with his wonderful wife, Joan, until her passing in 2015.
He strongly believes that minerals and other natural history objects show us many of the blessings God has provided for us. They provide us a chance to share our adventures, to collect stories, and bring us closer as people.
Jeff Morrison is the owner and operator of the Havey Quarry in Poland, Maine. A lifelong Mainer, Jeff has owned an excavation company in Yarmouth for over 35 years. Jeff also loves to scuba dive with treasure hunting being a long-held interest. Add to these Jeff's desire to take on a new avocation when his & Jan's four kids graduated from school and moved to homes of their own, for him, taking on mining was a perfect fit. Typically, you can find Jeff mining with his two Boston Terriers, Razzmatazz and Calvin.
Beyond mining, Jeff's biggest passion in minerals is providing opportunities to educate and excite a new generation of collectors, miners, and mineral scientists. Along with mineral friends Jim Nizamoff and Raymond Sprague, Jeff began the New England Mineral Association in 2011 and has served as its president since its inception. Each year he works to expand the reach of the organization. You can easily see that mining and minerals are truly Jeff's passion when you see this quiet man in conversation with anyone who wants to "talk rocks" or mineral education.
When not mining, Jeff and Jan love to visit family and to travel the world, most recently to Australia, New Zealand, and Arizona, where they went in search of….rocks....
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