Some Exciting News!

I have some big news to share on the blog, today I’m not going to focus on a recent history adventure but instead giving an update on both my blog and life.

If you’ve been following me around recently, you will know that I’ve been temporarily living in California on deployment with FEMA since June 2017. As a reservist with FEMA you’re basically called to go to work in the wake of a disaster. So I originally came to California last June during the response efforts for state wide flooding. Since I’ve been here, California has had other disasters such as a number of large devastating fires in both the north and south of the state, and even mud slides. It’s been a learning experience since this was my first deployment with FEMA and my first excursion on the West Coast. Since I’ve been here I’ve seen a lot of awesome things when I’ve had time to travel.

Well late last year some permanent positions with FEMA’s Region IX office opened up and I applied to see what would happen. Long story short, I was hired for a position in Sacramento, so I’ve officially become a resident of sunny California!

View of downtown Sacramento, hence the “Love Sacramento” graffiti.

I’ve been back in California permanently since May 2018 and it has been a lot take in for the time being since my entire life has been spent on the East Coast and that’s where all of my immediate family and closest friends reside. But at the same time it has been exciting because its all so new- living on the West Coast, and having a full time job doing what I like to do and went to school for.

When I first graduated from UVM (University of Vermont) in December of 2013, when I was 23, I barely had any idea of what the hell I was going to do or how I was going to get a job “doing” historic preservation. I had been involved in a volunteer preservation group created from a class project and was trying to get more involved in Preservation Burlington but it wasn’t enough to get good enough experience to get a job in the field. When I finally moved home about a year later, I was super broke and honestly pissed. I assume a lot of people know that feeling of both anxiety and anger of not being able to get a job doing what you love to do or even makes you happy. When I moved home, I volunteered at the local museum, which I had experience working at before but it didn’t seem like that would help achieve the experience I wanted.

The biggest step in the right direction that I directly link to where I am today, is the Director of the Potsdam Planning Department looking at my resume and suggesting to the Village of Potsdam’s Board of Directors that they should hire me to write a National Register nomination for the Potsdam Civic Center. I got the consulting job by actually creating a proposal for the job and I remember emailing my former UVM professors, Bob and Tom, to ask questions on how to write a proposal and more importantly how to create a cost estimate for my work. Trying to “guess-ti-mate” how much you’re worth isn’t easy or fun and one too many times I’ve been told I’m selling myself short. On that note, if you’re trying to work as a historic preservation consultant, please feel free to reach out to me if you have questions. I might not have all of the answers but I can at least listen and give suggestions from my own experiences!

The consultant jobs I’ve had since that first National Register nomination, while few and far between, are all part of the reason I was hired by FEMA to begin with. But I would also say that maintaining this history-preservation-adventure blog has created “work” for myself and has served a number of purposes. It’s not only been an outlet for showcasing by mad researcher skillz and mediocre writing abilities but also has allowed me to educate the public on historic preservation things. If I remember correctly, in my original interview with FEMA I referenced this blog and the work I put into researching and writing posts for non-preservationists to read and learn about the history and preservation around them.

So, as a quick aside- A Big Thank You to everyone who’s ever read a post, liked a post, shared a post, or even commented on a post. Thank you so much! I honestly hope you enjoy reading my quirky posts and that maybe for other young preservationists out there, you get inspired to start your own blog or create your own “work” to gain the experience you need in preservation. And if you’re super interested in working with FEMA, FEMA’s Environmental and Historic Preservation cadre is always hiring- maybe you’ll find your calling with FEMA too! This is in no way, shape, or form sponsored by FEMA. I just know being hired as a historic preservation specialist reservist, was super exciting and my first “real” job as a historic preservationist, that wasn’t a consulting job.

So what does this big change mean for the blog, since it was started as a Northern New York history adventure blog. Well it means that more of my posts will be West Coast-centric but I still have a lot of posts on Northern New York topics that I want to write about and share with people. I think my “What Is This Jargon!?!” series will be a great way to showcase both architectural jargon and related photographs from both sides of the county. I also think there’s a lot to obviously share from here in California since the architecture and history out here is very different from Northern New York and even the East Coast in general, which is all stuff that you might not be familiar with.

So as not to let this be a post with just a bunch of words, here’s some photographs for planned upcoming posts on both West Coast and East Coast topics:

Ruins of the fireplace from the former observer’s cabin.

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