Measuring CRM

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Measuring CRM

• By Sarah Herr and Christopher D. Dore
• (Desert Archaeology, Inc. The Louis Berger
  Group, Inc.)

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WHAT IS CRM?
The passage of the National Historic Preservation
Act (NHPA) of 1966 mandated that federal projects
consider their effects on cultural resources.
Cultural Resource Management (CRM) as an industry
developed to fill the need for these mandated
archaeological services when federal agencies and
universities could not meet the demand (Elia
2003). Cultural Resource Management is a term
for the applied, or non-academic, practice of
historic preservation, history, archaeology,
anthropology, architectural history, historical
architecture, landscape architecture and
specialty subfields such as geoarchaeology, soil
science, and ethnobotany.

• Tasks typically performed by CRM companies
  include
• archaeological and ethnographic survey
  (inventory)
• recording historic buildings
• consulting with descendant communities, including
  Native American tribes
• evaluating resources according to local
  ordinances, state and federal standards
• providing advice to landowners and developers to
  help them comply with local, state, and federal
  regulations, including Section 106 of the NHPA

This poster focuses on characterizing CRM in the
United States. There are also mature
private-sector CRM industries in Canada, Western
Europe, Japan, and Australia, as well as
developing industries in other countries. The
poster also has an archaeological bias after
all, this is the SAA meeting!
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WHATS THE PROBLEM?
Measuring CRM in the United States is difficult
because the federal government doesnt recognize
CRM as an industry and doesnt track it through
government statistics. So, what we know about CRM
comes from a variety of sources, requires a lot
of assumptions, and necessitates creative
analyses. Most estimates of archaeologists in
the United States come from surveys conducted by
professional organizations such as the Society
for American Archaeology (SAA) and the American
Cultural Resource Association (ACRA). The
accuracy of these data for the current study are
affected by how well their membership represents
the CRM industry and the responsiveness of the
surveyed population.
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PAST MEASURES

In 1994, the SAA conducted a census of its 5000
members and 1000 non-members. The 63
non-academics who reported receiving CRM funding,
collected 300 million during a 5 year period
(Zeder 1997). In 2005, Doelle and Phillips
extrapolate from ACRA information on membership
and firm size to estimate that CRM firms do 250
million of work per year.
Bodies
In 2005, the SAA membership committee estimated
that about 70 percent of U.S. archaeologists were
non-academics and non-academics comprised 55.5
percent of SAAs membership. That survey
estimated approximately 5000 archaeologists
worked outside of academia (Phillips 2005)
Growth rate
O-Net is a US Department of Labor/Employment and
Training Administration-sponsored project that
provides career information about skills, wages,
and trends in the job market. O-Net estimates
that 6,000 anthropologists and archaeologists
currently work outside the academic setting. It
also identifies this sector of the economy as
growing faster than average, with an expected
growth of 150 percent between 2006 and 2016.
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HOW BIG IS THE INDUSTRY NOW?
Annual expenditures for services by public and
private sector clients have recently been
estimated between 683 million and 1 billion
(Altschul and Patterson 2008). This estimate is
based upon actual public expenditures and
informal surveys of CRM senior management on the
scale of private sector funding.
Current Measures of bodies
CRM Sector Description Count
Public Federal Government 975
Public State Departments of Transportation 375
Public State Historic Preservation Offices (N58) 1200
Public Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (N78) 230
Public Other State and Municipal Agencies 1,000
Private   10,000
TOTAL ALMOST 14,000
 (Altschul and Patterson 2008 Childs 2009 NCSHPO 2009 THPO 2009)  (Altschul and Patterson 2008 Childs 2009 NCSHPO 2009 THPO 2009)  (Altschul and Patterson 2008 Childs 2009 NCSHPO 2009 THPO 2009)
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DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR
Counting Companies To measure the scale of
cultural resource management in the private
sector we compiled the names of companies listed
by state historic preservation offices,
professional organizations, and job listing
services. In all, 1,624 companies with offices in
the United States have been identified. Only West
Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts did not
have lists. This compilation provides a nearly
complete inventory of companies that perform
archaeological assessments. Where it probably
falls short is in identifying architectural
companies who work in CRM. These businesses are
less likely to be listed by SHPO offices, and
more likely to work locally. As such, they may
not be on the lists of adjacent states. In
addition, over 525 individual consultants are
identified on these same lists.
Estimating individual practitioners is difficult.
Conservatively, the number of archaeologists
alone working in the cultural resource industry
is 5,150 professionals and 2,200
full-time-equivalent technicians (Altschul and
Patterson 2008). Technicians are often employed
seasonally. ACRA estimates 6,000 CRM
professionals. Dore and Herr (n.d.) forecast over
9,000 salaried employees in private-sector CRM
firms, of which at least 5,000 are archaeologists.
Statistical Research, Inc. is thought to be the
largest cultural resource-only firm in the
country with approximately 160 employees in 8
offices in 5 states.
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HOW MUCH DO CRM EMPLOYEES MAKE?
Contrary to popular belief, private-sector CRM
archaeologists make less than archaeologists in
government and academic-based archaeologists.
Benefits also tend to be the lowest in the
private sector.
POOR MAN, RICH MAN, BIG-MAN, CHIEF

RICH MAN
POOR MAN
Vernon Research Group 2007
Archaeological field technicians have the lowest
salaries. As shown here, mean wages vary
considerably by region. Technician positions may
be full-time or part-time and benefits vary based
upon the size of the company.
Within the private sector, managers and
administrators have the highest salaries.
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WHY IT MATTERS
Management. The successful management of CRM
businesses and government programs relies on good
comparative data. Jobs and Training. Graduate
schools have traditionally trained students for
jobs in academia. Ultimately, many graduates will
be employed in community colleges, museums,
non-profits, the government, and the private
sector. How many jobs are there? Where are those
jobs? How does the demand for jobs outside
academia match the number of qualified graduates
(Altschul and Patterson 2008)? Are universities
and colleges training students for the jobs they
are likely to obtain? Increasingly, departments
are offered programs in applied archaeology
(Neusius 2008). Political Clout. When Historic
Preservation laws are challenged by politicians
our professional organizations, such as the
Society for American Archaeology and the Society
of Historical Archaeology, and our trade
organization, the American Cultural Resources
Association, represent CRM interests to the
government. When talking with the government,
numbers matter! Do we really know what portion of
the American economy CRM represents?
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References Cited
 Altschul, Jeffrey H. and Thomas C. Patterson.
2008 Trends in Employment and Training in
American Archaeology. In Voices in American
Archaeology, edited by Wendy Ashmore, Dorothy
Lippert, and Barbara J. Mills. SAA Press,
Washington, D.C. (in review).   Childs, S.
Terry 2009 Commentary. In The SAA Archaeological
Record (January 2009) Volume 9 (1),
37-39.   Doelle, William H. and David A.
Phillips 2005 From the Academy to the Private
Sector CRMs Rapid Transformation within the
Archaeological Profession. In Southwest
Archaeology in the Twentieth Century, edited by
Linda S. Cordell and Don D. Fowler, pp. 97-108.
The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake
City.   Dore, Christopher D. and Sarah A.
Herr n.d. An Economic Analysis of the
Archaeological Labor Shortage and its Effects on
the Cultural Resources Industry. Manuscript in
preparation.   Elia, Richard J. 2003 Contract
Archaeology in the United States. In M.A.T.R.I.X
Making Archaeology Teaching Relevant in the XXI
Century. http//www.indiana.edu/arch/saa/matrix/a
el/ael_mod11.htm.   Neusius, Sarah W. 2009
Changing the Curriculum Preparing
Archaeolologists for Careers in Applied
Archaeology. The SAA Archaeological Record
(January 2009) Volume 9 (1), 18-22.   Phillips,
David A. 2005 Initial Estimate of the Number of
Professional Archaeologists in the United States
Using Data From the U.S. Department of Labor,
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Membership Committee
report to the Board of Directors, January 14,
2005. (Draft).   Vernon Research Group 2007 ACRA
Salary Survey. American Cultural Resources
Association.   Wagers, Scott J. and Chris
Nicholson 2008 What are Archaeological Field
Technicians Paid? SAA Archaeological Record
8(2)36-39.   Zeder, Melinda A. 1997 The
American Archaeologist A Profile. AltaMira
Press, Walnut Creek.  
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Websites consulted

•  
• American Cultural Resource Association
  www.ACRA-CRM.org 
• ASC Anthropological Studies center
  www.sonoma.edu/asc/aboutus/crm.htm.
•  
• Bureau of Labor Statistics www.bls.gov/
• National Association of Tribal Historic
  Preservation Officers www.nathpo.org/map.html
• ONet Resource Center www.onetcenter.org/

Acknowledgments
Thank you Jeffrey Altschul, Terry Childs, and
Teresita Majewski