Hello HISTARCHERS, my name is Mike Polk. I am the owner and principal
archaeologist of Sagebrush Consultants in Ogden, Utah. My wife, Ann Polk, is
co-owner. We are both archaeologists, having met at my first fieldschool
(her second) in the southern Cascades out of Sacramento State in 1969.
I received a BA in anthropology from San Diego State Univ. in 1972. My
wife got her BA in history at UC San Diego and was a post grad in
anthropology at SDSU. After spending a year working for Gwinn Vivian (then State
Archaeologist) doing archaeology on the Central Arizona Project (72-73), we
both went to grad school at Idaho State and worked under Earl Swanson and B.
Robert Butler. I didn't quite finish my MA there. I spent the next year in
Oregon working for the BLM. Ann assisted me on survey of the John Day
River in 75-76. We then moved on to Michigan State where I finished my MA in
Anthropology, and was starting my PhD with Bill Lovis and Chuck Cleland.
One of my classmates and upstairs duplex neighbor, was Bill Lees. I was
also in school there with Vergil Noble, Marcy Gray, Kim and Steve McBride,
Terry Martin, among others. Interestingly, while I always had a strong
interest in history, up to that point, I was generally heading into prehistoric
archaeology. My thesis dealt with Bison Jumps in the northwestern Plains.
But I always liked historical archaeology. In Arizona I was the guy who
wanted to write up the historical sites. At MSU I spent two summers
recording historic logging camps in the UP and historic sites in S Michigan.
Fortuitously, I was asked to run the field excavations on the Tombigbee River
Historic Sites Project in Mississippi in 1979. We spent a year there, with
Ann working in the lab with director Bob Sonderman (now NPS).
I loved it, but decided that was enough of grad school. Because during the
time in grad school CRM had blossomed, I landed a job in Dallas with
Environment Consultants, working for Alan Skinner. After a time, we opened a
branch office in Utah (because of all of the energy business). We arrived
in 1981 and the energy business promptly collapsed. After two years, our
office was closed and we were waved goodbye by the ECI owner.
While it wasn't our intention or even interest, we ended up opening our
own business, for lack of another means of income. For the last 29 years, we
have operated Sagebrush Consultants out of Ogden, first in our basement
(for 7 years), then at our current location. Our daughter is our office
manager. We have worked in every western state, except Montana, but primarily
in UT, NV, ID, WY and CO. While we do all aspects of archaeology,
architectural history, HABS/HAER, and work with Native American tribes, historical
archaeology has and remains our passion. We are known as the historical
archaeology company in Utah. In the last 15-20 years, I have involved
myself in a number of organizations, the most prominent being SHA and ACRA. I
have been and remain on numerous committees of the SHA, was Chair of the
1999 Salt Lake City Conference, a board member 2000-2003, and have run for
president twice. In ACRA I was a board member from 1995-2003, President
1996-97, and again as Elect, President and Past from 2005-2011.
Ann and I are planning to remain where we are for a while and eventually
retire to northern California (San Rafael) where I grew up.
Mike Polk
Sagebrush Consultants, L.L.C.
Ogden, Utah
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