We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jessica Ericson and Jasmine Saxon of Community Connections LLC a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright Jessica, Community thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard
The Cultural Resource Management (CRM) industry is a very important industry for the growth and development of the U.S. The CRM industry helps save and manage any and all cultural resources that are found before and during development of any kind. Thousands upon thousands of archaeological resources are found per year and are saved or at least well-documented before other industries develop on the landscape. While most of this is done through federal law and CRM employs hundreds of archaeologists, not many people know that archaeology is all around them. At Community Connections LLC, we bring archaeology to the public. We help people see that archaeology is all around them and that it can be used to connect us to our community, including our past, present, and future.
Jessica, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
In creating Community Connections LLC, Jasmine and I wanted to provide the public with easy opportunities to experience archaeology. Jasmine and I love to serve our community and we’ve each had different paths to get to where we are today!
Jasmine knew she wanted to be an archaeologist since she was about 12 years old. She went on a trip to the UK and fell in love with the stories of the past. Jasmine went on to get her masters in anthropology, concentrating in archaeology, from the University of Denver in 2018. She has worked in Israel, Connecticut, and many western states in the U.S.
I loved watching The Mummy as a kid. I wanted to experience other cultures, so I got my bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Colorado State University and have been working in the CRM industry in the western U.S for the past decade.
Through Community Connections LLC, we help our clients connect with their communities through archaeology and history by creating fun experiences that promote history, preservation, diversity and inclusivity.
We are most proud of our perseverance to create something new within the industry and the ability to get people excited about archaeology!
How’d you meet your business partner?
Jasmine and I met at a professional event within Colorado archaeology called the Colorado Council for Professional Archaeologists (CCPA). We had a mutual friend who had been telling us how we needed to meet and finally, in Longmont, CO in 2018, we were introduced to each other and we’ve been hanging out ever since! In 2019 on April 1st, we decided to turn our mutual passions for introducing archaeology to the public into something more tangible and created Community Connections LLC. We’ve been learning and growing ever since!
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
While we are present on social media and show up at professional events and conferences, our best source of new clients has always been word of mouth. Being in this industry for as long as we have, we have made great connections and have had a lot of support for what we are doing. We’ve had some great referrals and always welcome consultation sessions.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.communityconnections.biz/
- Instagram: @communityconnectionsllc
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CommunityConnectionsLLC
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/community-connections-llc/