|
My good friend and fellow HGS member, Rosemary Mullin, sent me a recent article from the Houston Chronicleby Jayme Fraser on Citizen Scientists that included a bit about our mutual friend, Neal Immega. It occurred to me that though Neal and his perfect “other half,” Inda, had been honored and recognized many times before, (eg. the Shell Alumni News, August 2008) I still felt they might be a good subject for a members’ profile in the HGS Bulletin.
One of the things I personally recognize that one may miss when you retire or go to a smaller company is access to tools and data. That’s especially true when one’s scientific interest requires investments in costly equipment whether it be a workstation; or saws, sanders, and pneumatic airbrushes; or access to extensive libraries.
 The Chronicle article centered on Neal’s affiliation with the clubhouse of the Houston Gem and Mineral Society (HGMS, see 100 Word Wonder, p. 11) which makes a variety of hobbies affordable for beginners and keeps a facility in southwest Houston for the use of amateur and or “semi-pro” paleontologists, archaeologists, “rock hounds” and jewelry makers. Some people with home workshops prefer to work there because HGMS’ equipment reliably works thanks to machinists, mechanics, and skilled tinkerers who are among their treasured club members.
Not all retired geoscientists should be called amateurs. Two of our HGS members are experts who have enriched visitors’ experiences as docents at Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) for many years.
When you sign up for a tour with either Dr. Neal or Dr. Inda Immega at HMNS you will experience some of the best HGS members have to offer to the community. Visitors have access to the storehouse of knowledge the couple has gleaned through their life-long love of learning. Neal and Inda’s expertise and infectious enthusiasm make exhibits come alive for listeners.
Since they retired in 1999, Neal from Shell E&P Technology Co. and Inda from Shell E&P International Ventures, the two have led tours for thousands of people whose “importance” ranges from kindergarteners to heads of state. You decide which group is most critical (Figure 1) and which may be most fun for them and their audience. “We love to interact with people and we always learn something new,” says Inda, who logged more volunteer hours last year than any other museum volunteer. She considers herself and Neal ambassadors for the profession; their job to spread enthusiasm for science.
Neal, a paleontologist, and Inda, a mineralogist, also research the museum’s special exhibits and prepare presentation materials. They also train other volunteers. When possible, their work is likely to start as much as a year before the exhibit is scheduled to arrive, Inda says.
Their preparation is apparent in the current exhibit “Maya 2012”, which made its worldwide premier in Houston. It features artifacts that represent thousands of years of Mesoamerican history. On tour through the galleries, the Immegas are able to speak easily about the languages, culture and religion of the region as visitors explore cases filled with rarely seen rubbings from Mayan carvings, stone tools, pottery, and recreated mural rooms. In a display that focuses on natural resources, Inda uses a geologic map to underline the difference between the karst terrain of the northern part of the Maya’s range and the volcanic Mayan highlands. “Everything is geology”, claims Neal gleefully, as he points out pyrite mirrors, jade ornaments, and knapped flint objects.
 A visitor on one of Neal’s paleo tours cannot avoid catching some of his enthusiasm for the subject and, if you encounter Inda in the Fabergé exhibit, you are likely to hear about metamorphism and the formation of jade on your way to stories of the Romanovs.
The couple’s love for geology began when they were children. When Neal was about six years old, he discovered his father’s rock collection in the basement of the family home in St. Louis, Mo. The specimens had been collected in West Texas near where Big Bend National Park is now located. Neal says that he was fascinated and believed every one of those rocks had a story to tell. His interest in fossils grew so that while in high school he spent hours in the recovery of fossils, primarily blastoids a kind of sea lily, from an area near Millstadt, Ill. He found he could earn spending money if he sold some of his collections to Ward’s Natural Science in Chicago, a large supplier of scientific material to schools and universities.
Inda grew up in Giddings, TX about 60 miles east of Austin. Giddings is situated on an outcrop of some Tertiary formations that are full of petrified wood, jaspers, and other colorful rocks she recalls. One of her favorite escapes from her nine younger siblings was to go off rock hunting with her grandmother.
Higher Education Together
It was kismet that two such people would someday meet. While in high school Neal and Inda attended separate National Science Institute summer workshops on geology at Texas A & M University (TAMU). The couple met as undergraduates at TAMU, where both majored in geology. Inda was the first woman to graduate from A&M with an undergraduate geology degree. They married, and then moved to Indiana University (IU) to pursue their doctorates. “Our honeymoon was a field trip down the Grand Canyon with IU’s geology club,” Inda says with a smile.
 The Shell years.
Neal and Inda went to work for Shell. That is where I had occasion to meet them. I met Neal first in the Pacific division where we both had roles in the 1979 Santa Barbara Channel sale. I do know that I bought, and still have, a beautiful gold with garnet ring and a necklace that he made. I don’t think I met Inda until later while I was at Pecten in the mid 80’s. She now admits that she has been involved in her follow-on career nearly as long as she was with Shell.
And to the present
For Neal, geology is an avocation as well as a career. As president of the Houston Gem and Mineral Society’s (HGMS) Paleontology section and longtime member of the Houston Geological Society (HGS), he leads fossil-collection field trips, teaches classes, and oversees the HGMS’s education outreach program, which provides rock, gem and mineral kits which are collected and assembled by society members, to area schools.
Inda chairs the HGS’s committee for recruiting museum volunteers. At the museum, she also created the volunteer mentoring program, teaches classes in gems and minerals, and serves as co-chair for the weekend docent program. A special delight for Inda is to help design children’s activities for special events — she says that a geologist never has to give up her colored pencils. (Here, Here, I am with her on that!)
“The coolest thing about volunteerism is that people say please and thank you, and if you don’t want to do something you can say no,” Inda says. “Neal and I consider our volunteer work as jobs — a reason to get up in the morning and an excuse to get things done.” Please enjoy these photos of Neal and Inda at work and at play!
|
HGS Members Pursue Their Call to Aid Our Community in Retirement