Kimberly Wade, laboratory technician, positions a prehistoric potsherd for a photograph.
Alexandria — Though the laboratory technicians at the Veterans Curation Program (VCP)
work with archaeological collections of the past, the program is a stepping-stone into the future for each of them.
The Jan. 12 Meet and Greet event in Alexandria highlighted not only the archaeological methods at work in the laboratory, but also the program’s commitment to supporting veterans.
The director of the Center of Expertise for Curation and Management of Archaeological Collections in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis District, Michael “Sonny” Trimble, started the VCP in 2009 to address a two-part issue. “The archaeological collections of the Corps of Engineers all need[ed] to be found, processed and set up in repositories,” said Jake Petrie, archives laboratory manager. “The other side was that he wanted to provide some kind of job training and employment opportunities for veterans.”
VCP hires post-9/11 veterans, primarily from the Afghanistan and Iraq
conflicts, for an employment and training program that lasts up to five-months. It pays veterans a living wage and provides work experience, as well as support for future employment or education. As laboratory technicians, veterans work in both archaeological and archival processing. They gain skills in database management, data entry, and Microsoft Office, among others.
At the same time, lab managers help technicians plan for the future. By bringing in speakers, sharing connections and working on resumes and interview skills on an individual basis, managers help veterans build knowledge and confidence in different aspects of civilian life.
While the program impacts veterans at a particularly pivotal point in their lives, the laboratory technicians’ work is similarly crucial for archaeological research.
“The beauty of this program is that we're training veterans, we're developing these great transferrable skills, we're getting them ready for the civilian workforce, but we're also rehabilitating collections that are at risk,” said Jasmine Heckman, project manager. The laboratory processes archaeological collections, places them in stable archival storage and digitizes the material for future researchers.
“They’re going to take these collections that have been sitting on university shelves or repositories for, in some cases, 20 to 30 years, and they’re going to get them up to a nice, museum-quality standard,” said Petrie.
This process unites veterans with various interests and aspirations. Lab technician Casey Wallace’s work with data and digitalization aligns with her interest in the administrative field. Furthermore, she has discovered a personal connection to one of the projects — a collection of historic artifacts came from her hometown, Gallipolis, Ohio. “It’s very, very interesting to see these items that had come out of an area that I grew up and never even thought twice about,” said Wallace.
For Kimberly Wade, her laboratory work with artifact photography feeds into her plans for studying art history. “It just feels like a natural step in my life and in my growth progression,” said Wade. She has learned not only about the artifacts themselves but also the archival skills necessary to photograph them. In the photography room, Wade points out the ridges and fire-cracked characteristics of a prehistoric cookware potsherd, its photograph illuminated and magnified onto a screen.
“You get intimate with the actual artifacts, and you want to know their story,” said Gabriel Brown, lab technician. For Brown, VCP provides a foundation for pursuing his passion for archaeology. “What got me into archaeology in the first place is the idea of pulling things from the dirt and interpreting the story from it … it’s just very satisfying being able to give a voice to people who obviously cannot do that anymore,” he said.
“I’m hoping to go on to get my M.A. in archaeology, but I'm trying to keep myself open to any possibility that comes along,” Brown said. He noted challenges involving finances as well as job experience. “You need to build your toolbox and fill it with as many tools as you can so that you become marketable, and that can be difficult,” he said.
Such tools are equally available — and valuable — for laboratory technicians without direct interests in archaeology. Rodney Calhoun discussed the difficulties of seeking employment after serving in the military: “As a veteran, once we get out, there's not a lot out there for certain [military occupational specialties],” said Calhoun. “This is actually giving me an opportunity to broaden my horizons and build on some of the skills that the military has taught me.”
Calhoun underscored the challenge of transferring skills from the military into civilian contexts. Despite having experience with teamwork and communication, it is a transition that most veterans are not prepared for.
“It’s really tough. I know so many of my friends have gotten out and they’ve struggled with not having a job,” said Calhoun. “[They think] their skill set doesn’t give them anything desirable in the civilian world, but … it actually does. We just don’t know how to articulate [those skills] to a civilian.”
Calhoun is currently processing folders and writing asset descriptions of documents on the archival side of the VCP laboratory. He was one of many at the Meet and Greet who spoke of the challenges of transitioning out of the military into the civilian workforce. “I am actually glad that I came here before going into any other job,” said Afrah Ahmed, lab technician, “because after leaving the military, all I know is military life — everything was military to me.”
Ahmed, who has been scanning negative photographs of archaeological excavation sites, emphasized the teamwork aspect of the VCP laboratory. Beyond working together to process each archaeological collection, the technicians support each other as fellow veterans. “Here, we learn from each other,” she said, “and the managers help us every single day.”
Wade echoed this statement. “It just feels good to be around people who understand me, who get me, who have been through similar things as I have,” she said. “The managers who are civilians are very understanding of what the veterans go through,” she added, referencing struggles with disability, in addition to the difficulty of transitioning into the civilian world.
Wade and Wallace both identified camaraderie as a significant and positive aspect of the laboratory. “It’s so nice to have that camaraderie, because everyone here has served,” said Wallace. Calhoun hypothesizes that the technicians bring the military aspect of closeness and teamwork into the laboratory. “It’s not like a regular office,” he said. “We’re all very close.”
The current five-month program session started with 18 technicians. One has already obtained a job and will depart from the program next week. According to Petrie, there were six technicians managed by two lab managers when he started working at the Alexandria laboratory as a technician three years ago. There are now six managers, working in a building that an April 2016 expansion doubled in size.
Heckman notes that the program has grown exponentially. The VCP currently employs 50 technicians and 14 lab managers across its three facilities in St. Louis, Mo., Augusta, Ga. and Alexandria. A joint venture comprised of Environmental Resource Group and New South Associates (ERG-NSA JV), an environmental consulting and cultural resource management firm, manages the program. It also operates smaller labs in Nespelem, Wash., and Tempe, Ariz., and is affiliated with the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR), the Colville Confederated Tribes in Wash., and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Laboratory, which hire veterans who graduate from the VCP.
As of November 2016, 373 veterans have been or are currently employed by the VCP, with 73 percent obtaining permanent employment and 17 percent continuing their education at colleges, universities, and in certificate programs.
Further growth of the VCP will be contingent on the congressional funding that the organization receives. “As a program, we are trying to help as many veterans as possible, so we really push the amount of money we get,” said Heckman. “We’re spending every cent of that on getting more veterans helped.”
While the program has limited spaces, Heckman encourages anyone interested to apply. “Even if we can’t help [applicants], we try to get them in touch with other veteran resources and try to make a nice collaborative effort in terms of furthering them in their transition from the military.”