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Senior Project Coordinator, Field Projects
During the last five years, Anna Zagorski has provided logistical and administrative support for GCI field projects, preparing budgets, planning and organizing support for field campaigns, and coordinating the shipment of equipment and supplies. She is particularly involved in the Institute's Maya Initiative and Project Terra.
Anna was born and raised in Los Angeles, the daughter of Polish immigrants who came to the United States after living in England for several years. Her father—an aeronautical engineer—had a great affection for nature, and during Anna's childhood, the family took a number of road trips to scenic sites. When she entered California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), Anna majored in geography and environmental studies and did an internship with an environmental lobbying group. Her studies at college included French, and after graduation she spent a year in Aix-en-Provence, studying geography at the Université d'Aix-Marseille and language and literature at the Institut pour les Etudiants Etrangers. After France, she lived in Italy for a time, then returned to Los Angeles to work for Air France.
In 1984 she took a job as a passenger service supervisor at Los Angeles International Airport, working for several international carriers. Seeking more intellectual stimulation, she decided after four years to return to CSULB to earn a master's degree in art history. There her studies focused on Etruscan, Greek, and Roman art (today her interests are decidedly more modern). While attending graduate school, she served as the assistant to the development director and general manager of the Los Angeles Festival, and she then spent a year as an intern at the Getty Museum, conducting research on selected French and Italian sculptures from the 17th to 19th centuries. Anna completed her degree work in 1993. By then, she was managing an art gallery in Beverly Hills that dealt with prints, photographs, and antiquities.
It was through a former colleague at the Los Angeles Festival that Anna learned of a job opening at the GCI. Since she was hired in 1996, she has been part of a series of field projects, work she finds satisfying because of the tangible contribution it makes to conservation. She is especially glad to be working on the Institute's current effort to assist cultural authorities in El Salvador with emergency earthquake relief.
Perhaps because her father instilled in her a love of gardens, whenever Anna has the chance, she's gardening at the home that she shares with her husband.
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