James Through the Years
The year James started making mining companies cry at the Board of Equalization
What is 1989
The natural resource most commonly found under the papers on James’s desk?
What is more paper?
California’s state rock that James has valued by the ton
What is gold?
The hobby James pursues with a tripod instead of a drill rig
What is photography?
This animated family debuted on The Tracey Ullman Show
Who are The Simpsons?
The exact number of years James served California’s taxpayers
What is 36?
The geologic era represented by the bottom layer of James’s desk (hint: Paleozoic)
What is the early 1990s?
The 1994 earthquake that triggered a tsunami of reassessment work for James
What is Northridge?
The beverage that has kept James vertical through 36 tax seasons
What is coffee?
This structure fell in November 1989 while James was still learning the ropes
What is the Berlin Wall?
The official title that made him the state’s top mine whisperer?
Senior Specialist Mining Appraiser Engineer
The only organizational system James trusts more than folders
What is “stratigraphic stacking”?
The only rare-earth mine in the United States, reopened in 2011 in San Bernardino County
What is Mountain Pass?
The activity James plays when he’s not appraising around mines.
What is travel and photo shoot
This Apple device launched in 2007 and made James finally retire his flip phone
What is the iPhone?
The agency James worked for before it got rebranded in 2018
What is the Board of Equalization (or BOE)?
Item James found in his cubicle in 2024 that was still sticky from 1993?
What is a Post-it note?
The metal that went from waste rock to California’s hottest commodity since 2015 because of Tesla batteries
What is lithium?
The golden-hour subject James loves photographing almost as much as his grandchildren
What are abandoned mines
This pandemic made James work from home in 2020 (and discover that sweatpants are taxable comfort)
What is COVID-19?
The number of California governors James has outlasted (Deukmejian through Newsom)
Who are 6?
The reason archaeologists will fight over James’s cubicle in 500 years
What is “perfectly preserved late-20th-century tax forms”?
The Imperial County open-pit operation that was California’s biggest gold producer for most of the 2000s–2010s
What is Mesquite Mine?
The one thing James owns more of than core-sample reports
What are camera lenses?
This social media app launched in 2010 that people use to post pictures instantly... that James still calls 'myspace"
What is… wait, no one knows because he’s never posted!