My bio by Don Peck

I am 73 years old (as of March 2004) and have been collecting minerals since I was seventeen. My first field trip was to Greene’s Farm Garnet Mine in Southbury, Connecticut and to the nearby Siderite Mine at Roxbury Station. I am a micromounter but have never been known to discard a large crystal or specimen. My major interests are crystallography and mineral identification.

Currently, I live in central New Jersey, but I grew up in Northwestern Connecticut. Lorraine and I have been married for almost 50 years. She is proof that good things come in tiny packages. We have two daughters and a son, all married, and six grand kids, all boys.

I was educated (arguably) in Connecticut, Maine, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Maryland. My initial degree is in chemistry but I went on to study geology, among other things.

I started working as a high school chemistry and physics teacher. Stuck my foot in my mouth and had to study geology. Then I taught some earth science. I have taught all three subjects at the university level. For twenty three years I supervised and coordinated science programs (kindergarten through high school) and I became really interested in the teaching of science in elementary schools. Subsequently, I worked at a university where I directed and taught in an outreach program where we ran inservice workshops in teaching science for elementary school teachers. One of the fringe benefits was that we were invited to teach them also in Puerto Rico and Korea.

I have done some writing. I coauthored elementary science textbooks for two different publishers (that morphed into four as they tend to buy each other). Also, I just finished a book “Mineral Identification: A Practical Guide for the Amateur Mineralogist”. It is soon to be published by Matrix Publishing Co.

Have Gneiss Day!