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WSA has been awarded an IDIQ contract for up to 5 years to conduct archaeological inventory and cultural resources management work for the 1.8M-acre Ouachita National Forest in central Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. It is the oldest (1907) and largest National Forest in the Southern Region of the U.S., consisting of a pine-hickory mix of timber, and is widely used for recreational activities. The Forest is planning to conduct timber operations that will call for NHPA Section 106 clearances. WSA's Austin, Texas office will provide the lead staff and technical expertise as needed during the life of the contract.

WSA has been awarded a GSA contract to conduct archaeological inventory of 305 acres in the New Harmony area of southern Utah. The work will be done on behalf of the Cedar City Field Office of BLM.

WSA has been awarded a General Services Administration contract to conduct archaeological inventory of 2400 acres for the Cedar City Field Office of BLM. The South Beaver CRI project will be conducted once snow melts in the project area.

Lindsay Wygant has given birth to her first child, a daughter named Tessa Pearl. Congratulations to Lindsay and her fiancé Ben Daigneau!

Dr. Charlotte Sunseri has joined the WSA staff in Orinda. She has a background in zooarchaeology and GIS applications. She will initially be analyzing faunal materials from our extensive data recovery efforts in Utah this summer, both in our Cedar City office and in Orinda. She has field experience within California, Corpus Christi, Texas, and at Cahokia Mounds, MO. We anticipate she will be assisting us on numerous projects in the western US.

Brandon and Rachel Gabler proudly announce the birth of their first child, a daughter named Juniper Elise. Congratulations!

WSA has been awarded GSA cultural resources work throughout the western and southern US: to conduct survey and testing at Veterans Lake Dam in Chickasaw National Recreation Area, Sulphur, Oklahoma; to assess 79 historic features for National Register eligibility at the Mono Mills historic district in Mono County, California, and to conduct intensive archaeological inventory over 2,150 acres in 3 locations within the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area in Pima County, Arizona. Work on these projects will be undertaken during the Fall of 2009.

The team of PaleoWest, LLC and WSA have been awarded a multi-year contract to conduct cultural resource inventory and assessment for US Forest Service Region 3 in Arizona and New Mexico. Task orders are expected to be delivered this Fall.

WSA, under contract to R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, will conduct intensive survey, site testing, and geoarchaeological investigations on 4,000-acres at the US Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. Work will be conducted this Summer, with reporting in the Fall.

WSA Project Director Aimee Arrigoni and her husband Ben are thrilled to announce that they have completed the adoption of their daughter, Avena, from Ghana, West Africa.

WSA is happy to announce the addition of Dr. Brandon Gabler to our southwestern team.

Brandon Gabler, Ph.D., has joined WSA as Assistant Lab Director and a Staff Archaeologist in our Tucson Regional office. Dr. Gabler received B.A. degrees in Anthropology/Archaeology and Mathematics from Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania. In 2009, he received both his M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology, specializing in archaeology and ecological anthropology, from the University of Arizona. He has worked on projects in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Arizona, ranging from archaic and early agricultural periods in scope through the recent historical period. Prior to joining WSA in 2009, he conducted survey and excavation in northern New Mexico with the Los Alamos National Laboratory Cultural Resources Team from 2004–2009, using these data to produce his dissertation. Dr. Gabler’s dissertation research focused on the changing settlement pattern, land use, and demography of the Ancestral Puebloans on the Pajarito Plateau, specifically around Los Alamos and the northern portion of Bandelier National Monument. Dr. Gabler has also assisted in editing reports for the Ironwood Forest National Monument, Mission Santa Ana de Cuiquiburitac, and Sanford Ranch projects for the Bureau of Land Management in Tucson, Arizona.

After two months of proposal preparation and review, WSA received an Award from GSA to provide services to the state and federal government in Environmental Consulting Services and Geographic Information Services. The award, which allows federal agencies to select WSA (on the basis of our outstanding marketing efforts, experience, competitive rates and charisma) to conduct contract work, will run until April 2014. Our GSA Contract Number is GS-10F-0142V. To access our GSA contract information, please go to the GSA Advantage website.

WSA Tucson Senior Archaeologist Michael Boley and his wife Charlotte proudly announce the birth of their first child, a boy, named Samson Elijah Oxtoa Boley on February 18th. Mom and son are doing great - congratulations!

David T. Yoder, Ph.D., RPA, has joined WSA as a Senior Archaeologist in our Intermountain Region office in Cedar City, Utah. Dr. Yoder received a dual history/anthropology BA and shortly thereafter a secondary teaching license from Weber State University, followed by an MA from Brigham Young University and a PhD from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He has seven years of experience in the Great Basin and Southwest having conducted excavation and archaeological survey in Utah, Idaho, and Nevada. Dr. Yoder is currently an editor of the peer reviewed journal Utah Archaeology. He is proficient with the analysis of multiple data sets with some of his most current research including architecture and mobility among the Fremont, the early use of ground stone and adoption of small seed processing on the Colorado Plateau, Basketmaker and Puebloan footwear, and the use of soft-X ray radiography for examining perishable artifacts. In addition to his technical report writing he has published in such resources as the Journal of Archaeological Science, the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, Kiva, and Utah Archaeology.

WSA GIS Analyst Nazih Fino and his wife Cecilia have given birth to a beautiful daughter, named Serene. Congratulations!

Mr. Scott O'Mack, M.A., has joined WSA as a Project Director in our Southwest Region office in Tucson Arizona. Mr. O’Mack has over 25 years of experience in archaeology and historic preservation. Before settling in Tucson ten years ago, he worked as an archaeologist and ethnohistorian on a wide variety of projects in Mexico, Central America, and the U.S. Midwest. Over the past decade he has specialized in the history and historic archaeology of Arizona and New Mexico, with a particular focus on the multicultural history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His recent projects have included studies of ranching history in southern Arizona, field documentation of historic-period irrigation systems in Arizona and New Mexico, historic context development for the archaeological remains of Hispanic settlements in New Mexico, an oral-historical study of a Mexican pottery-making community in southern Calfornia, and in-depth archival research on a nineteenth-century cemetery in Tucson.

Ms. Carole Leezer, M.A., joins our Southern Region office in Austin Texas as a Project Director. Ms. Leezer has over 10 years of experience in numerous academic and cultural resource management projects in Texas, as well as Belize and Mexico. She received her degree from the University of Texas (San Antonio) focused on a study of Mayan ceramics as they related to feasting activities; her interests also extend to the historic archeology of antebellum plantations. Ms Leezer served as the Principal Investigator/Project Manager for a data recovery project of the Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site in Brazoria County Texas and has served as Project Archeologist and Project Manager for several prehistoric and historic cultural resource management projects in Texas. Ms. Leezer has conducted projects under the jurisdiction of the US Army Corp of Engineers and the Texas Department of Transportation, and is experienced in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance through the authorship of chapters for TxDOT District Environmental Impact Statements, Environmental Assessments, and Categorical Exclusion documents.

We welcome both Scott and Carole to WSA as they aid in expanding our expertise throughout much of the southern and southwestern US, while making us even more responsive to the needs of our clients and state and federal agencies.

AGL Resources is proposing to construct the Golden Triangle Storage Project near Beaumont, Texas to store natural gas within a subterranean salt dome which is the site of the 1901 "Lucas Gusher" at Spindletop, marking the beginning of the U.S. (and Texas) petroleum industry, and tripling US oil production overnight. WSA has been contracted to develop an historic context and field verify (using GPS and GIS) visible resources within the Spindletop National Historic Landmark property. This context and the data generated during archival work will assist the Texas SHPO in developing mitigation to offset potential impacts to this NHL property and any residential, commercial or industrial features remaining in the area.