Kim Vagner

Jan happily resides in Maine less than a quarter mile from the tourmaline mine her husband, Jeff, owns and operates.  Jan loves humor, especially that which is understated or ironic. When it comes down to business, she is all business, having been tagged by a friend as “the Janinator” by the way she clerked the course at local and state track & field meets, yet she readily deflects that serious demeanor with outlandish humor at the least provocation. In 1978 she earned a B.S. in Business Administration, having taken “every science class Oregon State University offered to undergrads” and was finally personally asked by university President Robert McVicar to graduate when he stated she had “way too many credits” and it was time to matriculate.  Jan’s aim for the past 35 years has been to ignite the spark in others to learn and pursue their passions, particularly in the realms of geology, mineralogy, and gemology. She enjoys coming alongside people to support and encourage them to succeed in their work and their lives. Jan’s formal career began on a fast-track in retail management, then shot an erratic trajectory through accounting, foreign export of metals, engineering & quality control for furnishing warships, politics, directing non-profits, business and engineering writing and editing, philanthropy, and operations/office management. She has served on many boards including the Seattle School Board, the Seattle Art Museum Board of Directors, the West Seattle Arts Commission Board of Directors, the KCTS Seattle Ch9 Public Broadcasting Advisory Board, and the Religious Broadcasting Commission. In addition to her career, she has also served as a volunteer in leadership and administrative positions in numerous organizations such as the Naval Academy Parent’s Club-Maine, various Parent/Teacher organizations, BSF International, and Young Life of Casco Bay. Her side interests include reading, traveling, sewing and fiber arts of most any kind, gardening, writing, painting, and cooking.  As empty nesters of four adult children (and five grandkids), Jan and Jeff are now allowed time for travel and their continued mutual pursuit of rocks, generally not as collectors, but as observers and learners.  Born in Oklahoma, she has lived in Texas, Oregon, and Washington before making the trek to Maine to marry Jeff. Along the way she’s collected things that interest her: beach sand, leaf and shell fossils, obsidian, lava, striped stones, a growing collection of metallics, and quirky as well as phenomenally beautiful things from the Havey Quarry.  Whenever traveling, she and Jeff not only take in the cultural aspects of an area (like museums), but hunt for rock and land formations that help tell the story of the areas they are visiting. As she clambered all over the Cascades and Willamette and Hood River Valleys while living in Oregon for 20 years Jan is glad to be on the Board of the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks & Minerals and to be able to serve and give back to the state that has given her such a great zest for life and its opportunities.