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Why GSA Membership Is Important to Me

I attended my first GSA meeting the year I joined the Society
~40 years ago. I went because it seemed to be the meeting that all
geologists attended, and although a vertebrate paleontologist by
inclination, I was trying to sharpen my geological skills. But then,
how to go to two meetings per year—the vertebrate paleo meet-
ings and the Geological Society meetings? Karen Prestegaard—
who I’d known as a graduate student at UC Berkeley—told me
to go to the annual GSA meeting every year; this would be enough
to keep me at the forefront of the key developments in the geo-
sciences as well as connect me with the people I needed to meet
and with whom I might potentially collaborate.
It was great advice! While vertebrate paleontology turned more
and more toward biology, I enriched and refined the geological
lens through which I tried to address paleontological questions.
All the while, I was supported at GSA by the Paleontological
Society and SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology). The meet-
ings were manageable enough not to get lost, but broad enough to
drill down upon all the issues of greatest interest.
GSA welcomed me in unexpected ways. During my first visit And evidently I didn’t learn my lesson from the Geology editor-
to GSA headquarters in Boulder, Colorado, USA, as a first-time ship: I subsequently signed up for two more editorships of GSA
member of the Joint Technical Program Committee, I overheard journals: GSA Today (four years) and Geosphere (six years).
concerns about filling a suddenly vacated editorial slot at Geology. My entire career has been intimately tied to GSA. The Society
I thought, “I could do that” (“fools rush in!”), applied, and got has been welcoming, supportive, and horizon-broadening, both
the job. And for the latter four of the next six years, Ben van der personally and professionally. I would not be the same scientist
Pluijm and I each handled a new manuscript/day for the journal. It had I not taken Karen Prestegaard’s advice all those years ago.
was crazy, but also exhilarating! Along with Ben and the fabulous
GSA publications staff, I met—as reviewers—so many extraordi- David Fastovsky, University of Rhode Island, GSA member since
nary people; people who later became my colleagues and friends. 1986; GSA Fellow since 2007

26 GSA Today | September 2021