Transcript Measuring CRM

Measuring CRM
By Sarah Herr and Christopher D. Dore
(Desert Archaeology, Inc. & The Louis Berger Group, Inc.)
WHAT IS CRM?
The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966 mandated that federal
projects consider their effects on cultural resources. Cultural Resource Management (CRM) as
an industry developed to fill the need for these mandated archaeological services when federal
agencies and universities could not meet the demand (Elia 2003).
Cultural Resource Management is a term for the applied, or non-academic, practice of historic
preservation, history, archaeology, anthropology, architectural history, historical architecture,
landscape architecture and specialty subfields such as geoarchaeology, soil science, and
ethnobotany.
Tasks typically performed by CRM companies include:
•archaeological and ethnographic survey (inventory)
•recording historic buildings
•consulting with descendant communities, including Native American tribes
•evaluating resources according to local ordinances, state and federal standards
•providing advice to landowners and developers to help them comply with local,
state, and federal regulations, including Section 106 of the NHPA
This poster focuses on characterizing CRM in the United States. There are
also mature private-sector CRM industries in Canada, Western Europe, Japan,
and Australia, as well as developing industries in other countries. The poster
also has an archaeological bias; after all, this is the SAA meeting!
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
Measuring CRM in the United States is difficult because the federal government doesn’t
recognize CRM as an industry and doesn’t track it through government statistics. So, what we
know about CRM comes from a variety of sources, requires a lot of assumptions, and
necessitates creative analyses.
Most estimates of archaeologists in the United States come from surveys conducted by
professional organizations such as the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) and the
American Cultural Resource Association (ACRA). The accuracy of these data for the current
study are affected by how well their membership represents the CRM industry and the
responsiveness of the surveyed population.
PAST MEASURES
$$$
In 1994, the SAA conducted a census of its 5000 members and 1000 non-members. The 63
non-academics who reported receiving CRM funding, collected $300 million during a 5
year period (Zeder 1997).
In 2005, Doelle and Phillips extrapolate from ACRA information on membership and firm
size to estimate that CRM firms do $250 million of work per year.
Bodies
In 2005, the SAA membership committee estimated that about 70 percent of U.S.
archaeologists were non-academics and non-academics comprised 55.5 percent of SAA’s
membership. That survey estimated approximately 5000 archaeologists worked outside of
academia (Phillips 2005)
Growth rate
O-Net is a US Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration-sponsored
project that provides career information about skills, wages, and trends in the job
market. O-Net estimates that 6,000 anthropologists and archaeologists currently work
outside the academic setting. It also identifies this sector of the economy as growing
faster than average, with an expected growth of 150 percent between 2006 and 2016.
HOW BIG IS THE INDUSTRY NOW?
Annual expenditures for services by public and private sector clients have recently been estimated
between $683 million and $1 billion (Altschul and Patterson 2008). This estimate is based upon
actual public expenditures and informal surveys of CRM senior management on the scale of private
sector funding.
Current Measures of bodies
CRM Sector
Public
Description
Count
Federal Government
975
State Departments of Transportation
375
State Historic Preservation Offices (N=58)
1200
Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (N=78)
230
Other State and Municipal Agencies
1,000
Private
TOTAL
10,000
ALMOST 14,000
(Altschul and Patterson 2008; Childs 2009; NCSHPO 2009; THPO 2009)
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR
Counting Companies
To measure the scale of cultural resource
management in the private sector we
compiled the names of companies listed
by state historic preservation offices,
professional organizations, and job listing
services. In all, 1,624 companies with
offices in the United States have been
identified. Only West Virginia, New York,
and Massachusetts did not have lists.
This compilation provides a nearly
complete inventory of companies that
perform archaeological assessments.
Where it probably falls short is in
identifying architectural companies who
work in CRM. These businesses are less
likely to be listed by SHPO offices, and
more likely to work locally. As such, they
may not be on the lists of adjacent
states.
In addition, over 525 individual
consultants are identified on these same
lists.
Estimating individual practitioners is difficult.
Conservatively, the number of archaeologists alone
working in the cultural resource industry is 5,150
professionals and 2,200 full-time-equivalent
technicians (Altschul and Patterson 2008). Technicians
are often employed seasonally. ACRA estimates 6,000
CRM professionals. Dore and Herr (n.d.) forecast over
9,000 salaried employees in private-sector CRM firms,
of which at least 5,000 are archaeologists.
Archaeology
Architectural History
Environmental
Specialized
History
Preservation
Geosciences
Real Estate
Landscape Architecture
Other
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
Number of companies
Statistical Research, Inc. is thought to
be the largest cultural resource-only
firm in the country with approximately
160 employees in 8 offices in 5 states.
HOW MUCH DO CRM EMPLOYEES MAKE?
Contrary to popular belief, private-sector CRM archaeologists make
less than archaeologists in government and academic-based
archaeologists. Benefits also tend to be the lowest in the private sector.
POOR MAN, RICH MAN, BIG-MAN, CHIEF
Mean Annual Salary
$13.63
$10.44
Private-Sector Position
POOR MAN
Wagers and Nicholson 2008
Vernon Research
Group 2007
00
,0
00
$1 000
0,
$9 000
0,
$8 000
0,
$7 000
0,
$6 000
0,
$5 000
0,
$4 000
0,
$3 000
0,
$2 000
0,
$1
$0
Archaeological field technicians have the
lowest salaries. As shown here, mean
wages vary considerably by region.
Technician positions may be full-time or
part-time and benefits vary based upon
the size of the company.
RICH MAN
Archaeological
Laboratory Technician
Senior Archaeological
Crew Chief
Graphic Artist
Laboratory Director
Field Director
Production Assistant
Editor
GIS Analyst
Principal Investigator
Preservation Planner
Architectural
Historian
Project Manager
Office Manager
Division Manager
Principal
Within the private sector, managers
and administrators have the highest
salaries.
WHY IT MATTERS
Management. The successful management of CRM businesses and
government programs relies on good comparative data.
Jobs and Training. Graduate schools have traditionally trained
students for jobs in academia. Ultimately, many graduates will be
employed in community colleges, museums, non-profits, the government,
and the private sector. How many jobs are there? Where are those jobs?
How does the demand for jobs outside academia match the number of
qualified graduates (Altschul and Patterson 2008)? Are universities and
colleges training students for the jobs they are likely to obtain?
Increasingly, departments are offered programs in applied archaeology
(Neusius 2008).
Political Clout. When Historic Preservation laws are challenged by
politicians our professional organizations, such as the Society for
American Archaeology and the Society of Historical Archaeology, and our
trade organization, the American Cultural Resources Association,
represent CRM interests to the government. When talking with the
government, numbers matter! Do we really know what portion of the
American economy CRM represents?
References Cited
Altschul, Jeffrey H. and Thomas C. Patterson.
2008 Trends in Employment and Training in American Archaeology. In Voices in American Archaeology, edited by Wendy Ashmore, Dorothy Lippert,
and Barbara J. Mills. SAA Press, Washington, D.C. (in review).
Childs, S. Terry
2009 Commentary. In The SAA Archaeological Record (January 2009) Volume 9 (1), 37-39.
Doelle, William H. and David A. Phillips
2005 From the Academy to the Private Sector: CRM’s Rapid Transformation within the Archaeological Profession. In Southwest Archaeology in the
Twentieth Century, edited by Linda S. Cordell and Don D. Fowler, pp. 97-108. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Dore, Christopher D. and Sarah A. Herr
n.d. An Economic Analysis of the Archaeological Labor Shortage and its Effects on the Cultural Resources Industry. Manuscript in preparation.
Elia, Richard J.
2003 Contract Archaeology in the United States. In M.A.T.R.I.X: Making Archaeology Teaching Relevant in the XXI Century.
http://www.indiana.edu/~arch/saa/matrix/ael/ael_mod11.htm.
Neusius, Sarah W.
2009 Changing the Curriculum: Preparing Archaeolologists for Careers in Applied Archaeology. The SAA Archaeological Record (January 2009)
Volume 9 (1), 18-22.
Phillips, David A.
2005 Initial Estimate of the Number of Professional Archaeologists in the United States Using Data From the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of
Labor Statistics. Membership Committee report to the Board of Directors, January 14, 2005. (Draft).
Vernon Research Group
2007 ACRA Salary Survey. American Cultural Resources Association.
Wagers, Scott J. and Chris Nicholson
2008 What are Archaeological Field Technicians Paid? SAA Archaeological Record 8(2):36-39.
Zeder, Melinda A.
1997 The American Archaeologist: A Profile. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek.
Websites consulted
•
American Cultural Resource Association: www.ACRA-CRM.org
•
ASC Anthropological Studies center: www.sonoma.edu/asc/aboutus/crm.htm.
•
Bureau of Labor Statistics: www.bls.gov/
•
National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers: www.nathpo.org/map.html
•
O*Net Resource Center: www.onetcenter.org/
Acknowledgments
Thank you Jeffrey Altschul, Terry Childs, and Teresita Majewski