Blinman deserves reinstatement as director
Longtime director, scientist and public servant Eric Blinman should be reinstated immediately to his job as director of the Office of Archaeological Studies. My relationship with him goes back to 2000. He was acting director of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/ Laboratory of Anthropology for over a year (with no additional compensation) before I was appointed director. He left things in good shape while at the same time organizing his own office.
Before I retired, Eric and I were able to obtain the last available Bureau of Land Management parcel in the Caja Del Río area for the new Archaeological Repository — only after disastrous floods in the old Rivera building and at the museum threatened well over a million objects representing 12,000 years of New Mexico history. Eric, through years of dedication, was able to complete the building with a patchwork of funding sources to become the fully operational facility the office is today.
Eric was a strong proponent of Native issues and projects, a highly respected scientist, an experimental archaeologist, an educator and a friend of amateur archaeologists and volunteers. He is a collaborator, working with other scientists on things such as new carbon dating techniques, archaeomagnetic dating and prehistoric pottery types found in New Mexico. No matter what, Eric was always anxious to show visitors around the facilities with great enthusiasm and explain what his office was doing — daytime, evenings or during weekend pottery firing sessions.
Given his decades of public service, dedication and accomplishment, I was stunned to learn of his abrupt dismissal by the Department of Cultural Affairs. This, after he had filed a hostile workplace environment complaint within the department. The public should have access to this complaint. The letting go of Eric (and others in the department) will not make core problems go away in the department. Moving forward, he and the others similarly aggrieved should be reinstated and what I believe to be widespread dysfunction at the top of the department probed.
Duane Anderson, Ph.D., is the former director of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.