A quorum (10% of voting membership) is in attendance, GEE calls meeting to order.
In Attendence:
- Gretchen Eggiman (President)
- Diana Valk
- Scot Keith (Board of Directors)
- Lauren Scott
- Misty Dunn
- Heather Amaral
- Faith Macdonald (UGA)
- Bronwyn Matlick (Application vote today) Brett Parbus (UGA)
- Bryan Tucker
- Rachel Black
- Noah Bryant
- Amanda Thompson (UGA)
- Alexander Nalewaik (NRCS)
- Scott Butler
- Carla Hadden (UGA Guest Speaker) Hillary Jolly
- Howard Cyr (Application vote today) Maureen Meyers
- Patty McMahon
- Lucia McGrath (NSA Intern, non-member) Caroline Beigel (NSA Inter, non-member) Lori Thompson
- June Weber
- Matthew Compton
- Jared Wood
New Membership
Six new applications voted on, all passed with no objections
- Howard Cyr (NSA)
- Bronsyn Matlick (NV5)
- Kenneth Styer (RS Webb)
- Lucas Chapman (HPD)
- Rodney Parker (AECOM)
- Philip Shaffer (AECOM, various firms)
First Guest Speaker: Dr. Carla Hadden (UGA CAIS)
Carla runs the Center for Applied Isotope Studies and is in the process of updating the guidelines, policies, and application process for sample submission. The current drafts have recently been made available for dissemination and comment (attached to these minutes). They are hoping to have finalized documents available for release August 1st.
Second Guest Speaker: Dr. Brett Parbus (UGA Site File)
Brett presented the results of a recent survey put out by the GA Site File requesting input and feedback on Site File, update site form revisions, and GNAHRGIS. He has kindly made his PowerPoint presentation available (attached to these minutes). He noted that there were a few appendix slides in his presentation that he didn’t get to discussing during the meeting so be sure to look through the whole thing!
Third Guest Speaker: Maureen Myers (New South Associates)
Maureen provided a thorough update on recent events she’s been dealing with regarding a “concerned citizen”, who has been harassing and threatening her. Through her unfortunate experience, she has gathered extensive resources regarding how to deal with something like this… Moving forward we will be incorporating some sort of policy or specific language into the Councils formal documents, whether it be the Standards and Guidelines, the By-Laws, or Constitution.
Mauren also raised concerns about the use of AI in archaeology and how large language models used by larger, national firms, are feeding into integrated systems. Also, a general Google search for hiking trails in a nearby park returned AI generated answers on how to find and take artifacts. AI came up at the most recent GDOT GPTQ meeting. All of these discussions has led to the GCPA membership agreeing that an AI policy should be incorporated into the Standards and Guidelines…
Which was a great segway to…
Standards & Guidelines 2026 Revisions!
Scott Butler has been working on updated revisions including language regarding documenting/recording/assessing rock piles. Amanda and UGA Site File have been providing assistance.
Alex Nalewaik (NRCS) has since drafted an AI policy statement to incorporate into the Standards & Guidelines, which assistance from Josh Herrin. Alex has provided this to Scott, and we are now working on how/where to incorporate it.
There are still other issues with certain things, like discussions of “deep testing” and “monitoring”.
Treasurer’s & Membership Report
Matt Lyons formally submitted his resignation prior to the June 5th meeting but provided numbers in advance:
As of June 5th, 2026, there were 30 members on the register who have paid dues in the past year.
For a full Treasurer’s Report, email Misty Dunn at secretary@thegcpa.org.
Upcoming costs: Approved last year is a $300 expense for new GCPA logo, which will hopefully be ready in a few weeks.
Committees:
Nominations:
- Needed a VP: Bryan Tucker volunteered to fill the seat for the remaining portion of 2026, thus assuming the President position in 2027.
- Upon presenting to the Board, his position was approved by a majority of votes
- Needed a Secretary/Treasurer upon Lyons resignation. Misty Dunn volunteered to fill the seat. I suggest 2026 as the beginning of her term, thus she will serve until end of 2028.
- Upon presenting to the Board, her position was approved unanimously.
- Joey Roberts Board seat term expires at the end of 2026. Lori Thompson has volunteered to fill the seat. This will be voted on at a Fall Board meeting.
- Tom Lewis fills a seat but has been absent so his seat will likely need filling sooner than later.
Other Business
The new 10-year Georgia Statewide Historic Preservation Plan (SHPP) draft was to be ready by Spring 2026 according to Stacy Rieki, but I have yet to receive a draft.
Legal Affairs: HB1277 was signed/enacted/adopted as of May 11, 2026. This increases the cost threshold for public road or airport projects that require an environmental evaluation from $100,000 million to $200,000 million. Noah Bryant brought to our attention that the bill states that this amount will automatically increase with inflation.
The GNAHRGIS Steering Committee meetings have been on-going. Scot Keith and I (Gretchen) have attended some but not all meetings. Currently the issue is funding and how to keep paying for supporting the platform… Scot and I have tossed around the idea of GCPA and SGA providing a portion, but that still needs to be discussed with SGA and put to votes.
I’m sure I’m forgetting something.
Side note:
I want to thank everyone so much for coming to this meeting in Athens! It was so great seeing everybody’s faces and it made me extremely hopeful for breathing new life into this organization. I want to thank Misty Dunn for volunteering to fill the Secretary/Treasurer role on such short notice. She and I have already worked with Matt Lyons to transfer over all the financial and account information to her. Plus, she is brainstorming on ways to regularly keep in touch with all the membership with reminders and possible newsletter after each meeting. THANK YOU MISTY!