Her Story
About Amy
I'm currently doing two different things - I've owned my own archaeological consulting company for the last 6 years, and I recently took on the library director position at my local library branch. I've been working at the library for the last two years. My journey started in the Nevada desert where I grew up and gained a love of history from a really early age. I had my son when I was young and realized I wanted to go back to school to set goals and examples for him to continue my education, so I did that as a full-time mom and full-time student. I became an archaeologist a little bit later in life, around age 30. Here in Wisconsin, the ground freezes and you can't really do much digging for about 6 months out of the year, so I ended up doing a part-time job at the library. When our director left, I applied for that position and got it. I was actually the youth services librarian doing story time for the little ones, and then it shifted full gears total 360 into something different. I felt like I was kind of floating and floundering here for a little while, but it's been nice to kind of settle into something and pick up the pace and really go full force. I love being here at the library, I love the community, and I'm really proud that I've been able to step into this role and make some necessary changes that we could really use. I also work really closely with my local area historical society, so I'm kind of making ties to make everything go full circle here in our community. My husband also owns his own company - he is a glass glazer and installs residential windows. I homeschool my son, so my husband and I kind of balance everything together. My archaeology work is pretty much limited to the weekends now since I work full-time at the library. When I get home, if I have to do any reports or anything like that, I get all of my reporting done at home for my archaeology stuff, and then I'm able to hit the fields usually on Saturday or Sunday depending on the client's preference.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Amy
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to the support of my husband and just determination. I've had a lifelong love of learning - even when I got done with my bachelor's degree and I really wasn't focused on my master's yet, I was still taking free online courses. Same thing when I got my master's degree - I really didn't want to go for my doctorate because student loans hit kind of hard, but I'm still getting online and just learning something, whether it's a new language or historical ancient civilization or something like that. I'm just fascinated with keeping my mind open and seeing what else I can figure out about this world.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say to never give up. To not look to the world for answers, but to look to the Lord. The world will often bring you to your knees and make you feel worthless and not valued. I think that it's just important to just keep your eyes up, and stay focused, and just keep smiling through it, because no matter what life throws your way, you're gonna make it through.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think the biggest challenges and opportunities in both archaeology and library work go hand in hand, and that's just people and being able to connect to the community. I think with archaeology, people are so curious about it and don't really know how to get involved, but they are passionate about their local area history. And here at the library, it's the same thing. We live in a really, really small community - we have a town of like 2,500 people. So it's really neat. We have a really unique opportunity here to be able to connect closely with our patrons and just kind of share the world around them, whether it's history or science or just reading and learning things, putting together events like genealogy and working with our area historical society. It's really nice to be able to have a background in archaeology and also to be able to work so closely with people who genuinely care.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Honesty and integrity are most important to me. I love my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, more than anything, and in all honesty, I wouldn't be standing here if it wasn't for him and returning to that relationship. I grew up in a very, very strong Christian household and fell away from Christianity for a number of years when I was in my 20s for personal reasons. I recently came back to the Lord, and when I look back on my past, it's kind of staggering what I've been through and what my husband and I've been through together. It's really, really cool to be standing here - I feel strong, I feel empowered, I feel loved beyond belief, and I attribute that all to that.
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