A brief history of SHEAR

In the early 1990’s, Susan Sorrells of Shoshone Development, Inc., generously agreed to let Terry Pavlis and Laura Serpa use some unoccupied buildings in Shoshone as a field station. The buildings formerly housed the labs of Pfizer, Inc., which was exploiting industrial talc deposits in the region. In 1999 Terry, Laura, Marli Miller, and Darrel Cowan along with Susan Sorrells formed a California non-profit corporation with the title "Shoshone Education and Research Center" or "SHEAR center" with the primary objective of providing low-cost housing for educational groups and researchers traveling to the Death Valley area. In 2000 SHEAR was recognized as non-profit, 501(c)(3) charitable organization.   Susan leased the buildings to SHEAR at no cost. Since the early 1990’s, our group, with the generous help of many others, has continually made improvements and expanded the capacity.  The present board of directors consists of Darrel Cowan (President), Marli Miller (Vice-president), Terry Pavlis (Secy/Treas), Laura Serpa,  Susan Sorrells, Monica Argandona, and John Caskey.