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Must be a nice gig...
“Our goal is never to shut down a project, but it is to keep it moving forward. There have been findings that I will say have delayed projects,” he said. “We would not be in business if we shut down projects." Wow.....lol
When Johnson and an associate formed the company, “one of our primary goals was to do work with the Tennessee Valley Authority and they have massive landholdings through the Tennessee Valley.” Any time TVA adds a new transmission line or does construction, the area must be surveyed for cultural resources if it hasn’t been done in the past. Some of TVA’s own dams are now old enough to be on the National Register.
TVA property, which encompasses more than 11,000 miles of shoreland, includes some of the most significant archaeological sites in the Southeast, according to the TVA website. Looting and vandalism are such significant threats that the power provider created a volunteer program called A Thousand Eyes. Local groups and communities are encouraged to call TVA police when they see suspicious activity such as someone digging or using a metal detector at an archaeological site on TVA land.
Johnson earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in anthropology from the University of Alabama. He taught at Jacksonville State University and has published papers on the Widows Creek Site in Alabama, pottery in South Alabama, the Woodland Platform Mound in Northwest Alabama and sites in Mississippi and downtown Knoxville.