Boomgaarden, Sara

Bio

Ms. Boomgaarden received her Bachelor's degree from California State University Sacramento in Anthropology, and graduated Cum Laude with the Lambda Alpha Honors Society of Anthropology in 2015. Before returning to archaeology, she briefly taught elementary school. She now has six years of archaeological cultural resources management experience, covering intensive pedestrian survey, excavation, project coordination and management, contract billing and cost analysis, staff management, online GIS database review, Section 106 report writing, and overall staff and client relations. Prior to starting her archaeological career, she assisted in the survey, trench planning, excavation, mapping, and recordation of prehistoric and historic resources on a Roman-era hillfort site in Stirling, Scotland in 2019.

Sara has previous employment with Transcon Environmental Inc. (now Eocene Environmental, Inc.) out of Sacramento, California, as a project coordinator for the Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) Wildfire Safety and Inspection Program for gas and electric utilities, where she oversaw and managed the completion of cultural reviews across multiple jurisdictions, archaeological writers, and GIS teams from start to finish of all compliance deliverables, including fieldwork review when necessary, to the client. She also participated in intensive pedestrian surveys in the Northern California region.

Sara also spent time employed with Far Western Anthropological Group Inc. (Far Western) out of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a staff archaeologist coordinating the PG&E Vegetation Management program on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) jurisdiction in the Northern California field offices. As staff archaeologist in Las Vegas, other experience consisted of pedestrian survey and construction monitoring for gas and electric utility maintenance and fiber optic projects along BLM and Caltrans land across California and Nevada, and Department of Defense projects on military bases in Nevada and Utah. Her archaeological excavation experience with Far Western consists of the Hello Site in the playa of the Salt Lake region of Utah. 

Ms. Boomgaarden now lives in Southern Maryland, and is currently remotely employed with Eocene Environmental, Inc. (Eocene) as the cultural lead and archaeological supervisor for the PG&E System Hardening and Undergrounding Program where she manages a downline of archaeologists and writers for the program, based in Northern California. She is also Eocene's Shasta-Trinity National Forest cultural liaison for PG&E work, and acted as the assistant cultural lead for the Boardman to Hemingway Transmission Line Project from Idaho to Oregon. 

Having recently moved from the west coast to Southern Maryland in 2024, Sara has found a renewed passion for colonial history through the Civil War-era as it has become so readily accessible where she lives. In 2026, she joined the Maryland Historic Trust (MHT) on a volunteer excavation project, a late 17th-century possible homestead site in Southern Maryland.

When she's not working, you can find her in her large garden and chicken coop, reading dystopian novels in her backyard hammock with her 3 dogs, or visiting local thrift and antique shops for historic and unique finds.