Tom,
Are you beginning a new discussion with this post or responding to a post?
It was not clear to me.
Anyway, SOPA and SAA do not belong together.  It bothers me sometimes that
SOPA certification is becoming a standard for employment.  No such membership
assures that the bearer is competent or ethical.  I know of many who are not
members of SOPA because they feel it is unnecessary, that their SAA memberships
are more than adequate to assure their professional standing.
In another life, I was a member of a profession in which certification was
de rigeur.  If you were not certified, you had little hope of employment and no
 hope of professional standing or upward mobility.  Need I say that
 certificationby one particular accrediting group was (and is) viewed as the
 only valid
certification one could carry.  That profession is suffering now from a lack
of personnel.  If employers were more willing to give people a chance to show
 their competence in the workplace rather than on an exam, there would not be
 the
crunch for personnel.  Having that certification carried some perks, not the
least of which was a certain amount of job security.  But having that
 certification, or being able to attain it, makes the certified no more able to
 do the
work well and competently than not having it.
And the Underground needs to stay where it is--I almost never see it but feel
it performs a needed function in archaeology.
Jane
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