Dan Eck is not just a suit
Senior Vice President has ties with art and history
JD Botana III
Issue date: 10/9/08 Section: Features
First impressions would not suggest that Dan Eck is trained as an Egyptologist, nor that he's a connoisseur of meteorites and dinosaur bones. He sat in the coffee shop in business attire, looking very much like a "suit," enjoying the buzz of activity from the more casually dressed students.
Dan's career as a museum attorney has taken him in unusual directions. However, it is clear Dan's path has lead him, the new senior vice president for administration, to a place where he can use his plethora of talents, a place where he can feel "like I'm supporting something that is meaningful to our experience here."
Born in a small town in Min. with a population not much larger than Lakeland College, Dan began to follow his dream: "I wanted to see the world."
After high school Dan's education began in Beloit College, a two-and-a-half hour drive Southwest of Lakeland. He worked in the school's museum which correlated with his major, anthropology.
While he was in high school, he wrote a senior thesis on how to translate hieroglyphics. While at Beloit College he had an opportunity to spend a semester in Cairo, Egypt. Dan's dream of being an Egyptologist seemed to be within his grasp.
Unfortunately, his ambitions for being an archeologist were never fully explored. He was not able to experience a dig since at this time it was hard for foreigners to gain access. Instead "[I] did a lot of wandering around."
"I think that every student should have the opportunity to go overseas…it totally changes your perspective about the world."
Not sure of what to do with his B.A. in anthropology or his minor studies in museum studies he went to Bloomington, Indiana where he studied law. "Being a lawyer you get pushed head first into how the business world works….After a sufficient time of being beat down by that system, I decided to go back to the non-profit world."
He ventured back to the Midwest to work as a non-profit lawyer for the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. "It was a great job. I was helping buy and sell meteorites, licensing reproductions of dinosaur bones, and helping scientists set up partnerships with foreign institutions to do archeological digs in Peru or China. Places like that."
Dan's career as a museum attorney has taken him in unusual directions. However, it is clear Dan's path has lead him, the new senior vice president for administration, to a place where he can use his plethora of talents, a place where he can feel "like I'm supporting something that is meaningful to our experience here."
Born in a small town in Min. with a population not much larger than Lakeland College, Dan began to follow his dream: "I wanted to see the world."
After high school Dan's education began in Beloit College, a two-and-a-half hour drive Southwest of Lakeland. He worked in the school's museum which correlated with his major, anthropology.
While he was in high school, he wrote a senior thesis on how to translate hieroglyphics. While at Beloit College he had an opportunity to spend a semester in Cairo, Egypt. Dan's dream of being an Egyptologist seemed to be within his grasp.
Unfortunately, his ambitions for being an archeologist were never fully explored. He was not able to experience a dig since at this time it was hard for foreigners to gain access. Instead "[I] did a lot of wandering around."
"I think that every student should have the opportunity to go overseas…it totally changes your perspective about the world."
Not sure of what to do with his B.A. in anthropology or his minor studies in museum studies he went to Bloomington, Indiana where he studied law. "Being a lawyer you get pushed head first into how the business world works….After a sufficient time of being beat down by that system, I decided to go back to the non-profit world."
He ventured back to the Midwest to work as a non-profit lawyer for the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. "It was a great job. I was helping buy and sell meteorites, licensing reproductions of dinosaur bones, and helping scientists set up partnerships with foreign institutions to do archeological digs in Peru or China. Places like that."
Be the first to comment on this story