Veterans Curation Program Open House, January 2016
The Veterans Curation Program provides five months of paid, intensive archaeological curation training to recently-separated veterans, using collections from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
There are three of these specialized laboratories funded by the St. Louis District of the Corps across the country in Alexandria, Virginia; Augusta, Georgia; and St. Louis, Missouri. The laboratory in Alexandria held an open house Jan. 12, 2016, so the 12 employed veterans could demonstrate their work in archiving and artifacts and discuss how the program is helping to prepare them for the future.
The veterans are not only helping the Corps rehabilitate vast archaeological collections to museum standards to aid in future research but also learning important career-building skills. These veterans, turned archaeological laboratory technicians, rotate through work stations facilitated by professional archaeologists in data entry, report writing, photography, artifact processing and digitizing paper documents.
Since its establishment, the Alexandria laboratory has trained 89 veterans in archaeological curation, and, from this group, 99 percent have found employment or are continuing their education.
The Alexandria laboratory is managed by ERG-NSA JV, a joint venture comprised of environmental consulting and cultural resource management firms, Environmental Resource Group (ERG) and New South Associates (NSA).
