Jean-Pierre (J.P.) Cavigelli
Field Operations Specialist and Prep Lab Manager
Tate Geological Museum, Casper College
125 College Dr.
Casper, WY 82601
U.S.A.

Jean-Pierre Cavigelli is prep lab manager and field trip organizer at that Tate Museum. Birdwatching was an important part of his childhood in Massachusetts, as well as his college life at the University of Chicago where he was a founding memebr of the U of C Birdwatching Society. In college, JP also became interested in paleontology. This led him to a summer spent in Wyoming (mostly in the Big Horn Basin) in 1983 doing field work in search of small Cretaceous mammal teeth for Jay Lillegraven, paleontologist at the University of Wyoming. JP fell in love with Wyoming but left for a pseudo-career move...a five year adventure in fun and poverty as a ski bum and whitewater rafting guide in Colorado and Australia. JP came back to Wyoming in 1990 to work for Lillegraven at the UW again. He stayed in Laramie working off and on in paleontology for 14 years, doing field work as well as a two year post as the collections manager for the UW's Dept. of Geology and Geophysics. When paleo jobs were unavailable in Laramie, JP worked in a health food store, a furniture factory, at a mechanic's shop and did some freelance fossil preparation in his basement. He has had the good fortune of having been invited to join international paleontological expeditions to Mongolia, Niger (twice) and North Dakota. He has lived in Casper for two years since his job came up at the Tate.