Company Founders

Mary Maniery

Mary Maniery

Mary Maniery is cofounder of PAR and currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer. Mary began her career in California archaeology in 1975 working on an historical site in downtown Chico. Since that time she has gained extensive professional experience in the private sector working on and managing cultural resources projects throughout California, western Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Washington. She served as an Archaeologist on the Plumas National Forest in California in 1978 and on the Mendocino National Forest (MNF) in 1979-80. While at MNF, she developed an oral history program that is still in use today.

Ms. Maniery specializes in National Register of Historic Places historical site, building and district evaluations and nomination forms, the Section 106 process, architectural surveys, historical research and excavation, and NEPA and CEQA regulations concerning cultural resources. She has successfully nominated three northern California Asian-American districts, a Chinese cemetery, two military bases, a commercial district, a ranch, and a canal to the National Register. In addition, she has prepared several California Points of Historical Interest nominations leading to the listing of Negro Bar and the Young Wo Cemetery as State Points. She works closely with the State Office of Historic Preservation, National Park Service, and numerous federal, state, and local agencies and firms. Ms. Maniery has gained particular recognition for her contributions to Asian American archaeology, and military history and development.

The Register of Professional Archaeologists currently certifies Mary in historical archaeology and field research and she also meets Secretary of Interior Professional Standards as an historian, architectural historian and historical archaeologist, all at a Principal Investigator level. Ms. Maniery obtained her master's degree in Anthropology from California State University, Chico and holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in History and Anthropology. Mary completed a five-year term on the Society for California Archaeology Board of Directors, serving as Northern Vice President and President of the Society. In 2001, Ms. Maniery was appointed Commissioner on the State Historic Resources Commission by Governor Gray Davis where she served for four years. She currently serves as an editor for the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Ms. Maniery has authored or co-authored more than 500 cultural resources reports or elements of environmental documents prepared for federal, state, county, and city agencies and private organizations. These include historical overviews, data recovery reports, determination of eligibility and finding of effect documents, architectural and archaeological survey reports, prehistoric and historical site evaluations, Historic American Building Survey, and Historic American Engineering Record reports, 15 National Register of Historic Places district or site nomination forms, and three Points of Historical Interest nominations. In addition, she is skilled at preparing agreement documents for agencies involved in the Section 106 process, and in designing and implementing treatment plans and management documents.

Mary has authored or co-authored 40 professional papers and has served as a symposium chair for 10 sessions with the Society for California Archaeology and the Society for Historical Archaeology. A list of her academic publications is as follows:

  1. 2016 From Missions to Chinatowns to Homesteads to Military Training Centers: A Perspective on Historical Archaeology in California. In Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology, Volume 30.
  2. 2016 Finding Hidden Voices of the Chinese Railroad Workers: An Archaeological and Historical Journey (Mary L. Maniery, Rebecca Allen and Sarah Christine Heffner). Society for Historical Archaeology Special Publication Series No. 13.
  3. 2016 Eventful Times: SCA's History between 1987 and 1996 (Michael A. Glassow, John R. Johnson, Julia G. Costello, and Mary L. Maniery). California Archaeology
  4. 2015 An Archaeological Strategy for Chinese Workers' Camps in the West: Method and Case Study. (Lynn Furnis and Mary L. Maniery). Historical Archaeology 49(1):71-84.
  5. 2010 New Style 7 Rock Art Sites (Mary L. Maniery, John Philip Glover and Marshall Millett). In News and Notes, California Archaeology 2(2):284-296. Journal of the Society for California Archaeology, Chico, CA.
  6. 2009 Central Valley Sites: Historical Archaeology. In Archaeology in America: An Encyclopedia, Volume 4 - West Coast and Arctic/Subarctic, pp. 111-113. F. McManamon, General Editor with L. Cordell, K. Lightfoot and G. Milner, Editorial Board. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, CT.
  7. 2005 Life on the Edge: Soldiers and Miners on the Nineteenth-Century Coso Frontier. In Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology, Volume 18:181-186.
  8. 2000 Health, Sanitation, and Diet in a 20th Century Dam Construction Camp: A View from Butt Valley, California. Historical Archaeology Special Publication.
  9. 1997 The African American Experience: Gold Mining Along the American River. Golden Nuggets, Sacramento County Historical Society.
  10. 1997 By the Sweat of their Brow: The Gold Mining Community of Negro Bar, 1850-1920. Golden Nuggets, Sacramento County Historical Society.
  11. 1997 The Meredith Brothers: Entrepreneurs of Negro Bar. Golden Nuggets, Sacramento County Historical Society.
  12. 1996 Chute Logging in Plumas County. Plumas County Historical Society 4(2).
  13. 1992 Logging Chute Systems in Northeastern California: A Case Study on Plumas National Forest. In Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology, Volume 4:151-158.
  14. 1988 Rice Bowls in the Delta. Julia Costello and Mary L. Maniery. University of California, Los Angles, Institute of Archaeology Occasional Paper 16.
  15. 1986 Celadons and Sake Bottles: Asian History Underground. Mary L. Maniery and Julia Costello. In The Pacific Historian, Volume XXX, No. 4, Winter, pp. 36-46.

James Gary Maniery

Gary Maniery

James Gary Maniery is the original founder of PAR and serves as the corporation chief financial officer and Director of Environmental Planning. He began his career in archaeology in 1975 working as a volunteer for the Nevada State Museum. Shortly after this volunteer effort, he was hired by the Archaeological Study Center, California State University, Sacramento to work on an excavation project near Walnut Grove, California. Gary earned his undergraduate degree in environmental studies and a graduate degree in anthropology from Sacramento State University, and has an environmental management degree from the University of California, Davis. Mr. Maniery's area of expertise includes both archaeological and ethnohistorical investigations and research within California, as well as environmental planning (with emphasis on transportation projects in California and United States Forest Service, Land Exchange undertakings).

As an archaeologist, Mr. Maniery has worked in both the private sector and for government agencies throughout California and in five other states (including Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Georgia and Alaska). In Alaska, Gary worked for the USDI, Bureau of Land Management (through a grant issued by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education) on two village sites at Paxon Lake, located in south-central Alaska. He also spent two seasons working for the USDI, United States Fish & Wildlife Service on monitoring work located on the Kenai Peninsula and excavations in extreme northeastern Alaska in the William O Douglas Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Gary also served as Six Rivers National Forest, Orleans Ranger District, as District Archaeologist; and as an archaeological technician on the Chief Joseph Dam (University of Washington Archaeological Survey) and St. Catherine's Island Anthropological Research projects (American Museum of Natural History). In a contractor's role, Mr. Maniery has been a Principal Investigator on dozens of California Forest Service cultural resources evaluation and inventory projects totaling over 150,000 acres. Gary has written or co-authored more than 300 technical reports for agencies and private firms throughout California, southwestern Oregon and Alaska.

Mr. Maniery has also been active in the academic arena throughout his career where he has presented over 10 papers at professional society meetings. He was appointed by the State Office of Historic Preservation to a subcommittee on the California Heritage Data Management Advisory Committee (1985) and received a research grant (1981) and Honorarium (1981) from the Calaveras County Heritage Commission and San Francisco Art Institute, respectively.

A list of Mr. Maniery's most important publications follows:

  1. 2015 Article Review. A New Look at Some Old Data: The Nisenan Photographs of Alexander W. Chase. By Thomas Blackburn. In, Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology.
  2. 2010 Book Review. California Indians and Their Environment: An Introduction. By Kent G. Lightfoot and Otis Parrish. In, American Indian Culture and Research Journal. 34(1): 143-146. University of California, Los Angeles.
  3. n.d. Archaeology in Apwaruge Territory: Site Excavations Along Russell Dairy Creek. Volume I - Testing Report. Technical Report No. 3. PAR ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES, INC., Sacramento, CA.
  4. n.d. [With Dwight Dutschke] "Burning of the Digger" News from Native California [to be submitted]. Originally presented at California Indian Conference (1993), Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara.
  5. 1996 The Natoma Site. Archaeological Test Excavations at CA-SAC-166. Technical Report No. 2. PAR ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES, INC., Sacramento, CA.
  6. 1994 "Images of Hechenu" Ethnohistorical Notes on a Northern Sierra Mewuk Village. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 18(1):1-28. University of California, Los Angeles.
  7. 1992 Northern Miwok at Big Bar: A Glimpse into the Lives of Pedro and Lily O'Connor. The Californians 10(1):28-31. Grizzly Bear Publishing Company, Sebastopol, CA.
  8. 1990 Northern Pomo Prehistory. Archaeological Test Excavations at CA-MEN-2138, Redwood Valley, California. Technical Report Number 1. PAR ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES, INC., Sacramento, California.
  9. 1989 (with Dwight Dutschke) Northern Miwok at Big Bar: A Glimpse into the Lives of Pedro and Lily O'Connor. American Indian Quarterly, Vol. XIII, Fall, No. 4. University of California, Berkeley.
  10. 1987 Six Mile and Murphys Rancherias: A Study of Two Miwok Village Sites. San Diego Museum Papers No. 22.
  11. 1984 Kosoimuno-nu (Six Mile Rancheria). Las Calaveras (Bulletin of the Calaveras County Historical Society) Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 11-20.
  12. 1983 A Chronicle of Murphys Rancheria (Mol-Pee-So): A Historic Central Sierra Miwok Village. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, Vol. 5, Nos. 1 and 2 (Summer and Winter), pp. 176-198.
  13. 1981 An Archaeological Site/Ethnographic Village: Central Sierra Miwok Case Study. Contract Abstracts and CRM Archaeology 3(1):9-26. A Techistron, Inc., Albuquerque, NM.
  14. 1976 (with R. Cox, C. Hultquist, and B. Loudat) Archaeological Excavations at 49-Gul-79, on Paxon Lake, Alaska. Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, Boulder, CO.