"My main focus as I was growing up was not school; it was athletics," Phil told us. "I really wanted to be a professional athlete. I spent my high school and college days playing football and wrestling, though at a certain point I had to face the harsh reality that I just wasn't good enough to go pro."

Phil's major was physical education; his minor was recreational therapy. Upon graduation, he got a job as a community mental health worker in San Francisco. "It was a time when cuts in federal and local funds were closing many programs and services to help the chronically mentally ill," Phil explained. When the program he worked for lost its funding, Phil found himself out of a job.

"A friend told me about an opening in the exhibition department at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. I took it as a temporary solution, just a stopgap measure, until something else opened up in my field." Phil also considered going back to school to get a degree in social work. "But as it turned out I really enjoyed what I was doing at the museum, despite the fact that the salary was lower than what I had been getting. I talked to my wife about whether we could manage financially on our combined salaries, and she was kind enough to agree that we could."

Phil started at the bottom of the ladder, constructing exhibits. It was work he knew and enjoyed. "My father owned a lot of houses, and from the time I was very small I always worked with him, so I had a background in carpentry and construction. I also had an interest in art. When I was young I won quite a few art contests, so I guess I have a natural ability for this kind of work."

Still, Phil considers it largely a matter of luck that his job developed as it did. "I just kind of fell into it, and I met a group of people at the museum who were willing to share with me their knowledge and their techniques."

One of those people was Lowell Dingus, a geologist who now works in the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology at AMNH. The two became friends when they worked together on a project in San Francisco. "Through that friendship there developed an affiliation with the University of California at Berkeley and the museum of paleontology there. I took some courses in paleontology, preservation, and collecting techniques, and I participated in several dinosaur digs with Lowell in Montana."

Eight years ago, Phil came to AMNH, where Lowell Dingus was Project Director for the reconstruction of the Museum's dinosaur collection into the massive new Halls of Vertebrate Evolution. Phil worked on the project, which took more than seven years.

Phil believes that it is possible to motivate people to do a big job without being bossy. "Because I worked my way up from hands-on to the management level, I have a very good idea of what is involved in all of the tasks I am asking people to do."

He also believes that he can always learn from others, and he is willing to share what he knows as well. "I know from experience that I can learn something from anybody. Someone will say something that suddenly makes everything else make sense to me, and it makes absolutely no difference who he or she is or what his or her position is at the Museum or anyplace else. It's important to stay open to that possibility," he said.

"One of the great advantages of my job is that it has given me the opportunity to keep learning. No matter how old I get there's always something new around the corner to make it exciting for me. All along the way there has been continuing education. I went back and studied sculpture, architecture, drafting, and more. And I have learned so much from the people I work with. I really believe that my education started after I graduated from college," Phil said.

Nonetheless, Phil considers personal relationships the key to success. "The first and most important thing in this type of work is knowing how to get along with others."

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