The Gibson family, which includes Dr. Michael Gibson and Edie Gibson and their children, Brandt and Kesley, can often be seen around UTM, whether it’s as professors, staff, students or alumni.
Gibson has been a professor of Geology at UTM for 25 years, specializing in paleontology. He teaches several fields of geology, such as marine geology, paleontology and history of the Earth, and methods of geoscience, but paleontology, the study of fossils, is what he loves most.
Although Gibson loves finding really old things, he never thought he would actually make a living doing what he loves. Growing up in Williamsburg, Va., a historic, tourist town that attracts thousands, and putting himself through college working as a hotel manager, he always thought he would have a career in the hotel business.
As a child, Gibson loved history, being outdoors and going to the beach. He loved being in the water, but most of all he loved collecting seashells. Gibson graduated from The College of William & Mary in 1979 with a degree in Geology. In 1981, he began graduate school at Auburn University.
Gibson met his future wife, Edie Bolton, while teaching in the Geology Department at Auburn. She was working on bachelor’s degrees in Public Relations and Journalism. In 1983, the couple married immediately after he finished graduate school, but stayed at Auburn for another year while she finished her degrees.
He then taught geology for one year at UTK while working on his doctorate. During his time in Knoxville, Gibson was recommended for a teaching position available at UTM. He interviewed in the spring of 1988 while still in his fourth year of his doctoral program. The position was to start the following August, and he needed to be finished and have his dissertation defended by then in order to take the position. In August, he graduated, went home and packed a U-Haul, and then drove to Martin, all within a few days.
“There was a lot of pressure on me at that time. So, I worked really hard to finish in order to keep my position. I guess you could say I was in the right place at the right time,” Gibson said.
Gibson has a long list of accomplishments. Among these are 19 trips to Central America, teaching two weeks in Japan, writing about 45 articles and a few chapters in several books, and being invited to speak at the International Symposium in Canada while he was still in Knoxville. He is currently writing a new article. He also teaches coastal geomorphology and marine geology during the summer at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama while conducting research related to change in the island because of hurricane activity and human modifications. He then applies what he learns there to his regular research on fossils in Tennessee. He also designed the natural history floor and dinosaur hall of the recently opened Discovery Park of America in Union City.
Gibson loves learning and will sometimes read several books at one time.
“I love my job and coming to work is easy for me, because I get to come to work and play, and I feel very fortunate for that,” Gibson said.
While on this incredible journey, Gibson has had the support of his wife, to whom he has been married for 30 years. Edie Gibson says that she and her husband share a common bond. They both have a love for old things; the only difference is that she collects antiques and he collects fossils. They also both love the beach and reading, but their No. 1 hobby is spending time with their two children, Kesley and Brandt.
Edie Gibson started working at UTM in 1989 while pregnant with Brandt. She is currently as an executive assistant to the chancellor, and she has worked under four different chancellors. She also enjoys traveling with her husband. As a couple, they have traveled to Japan, Germany and Canada. She has only traveled out of the country one time without her husband, when she traveled with her family to Mexico before she married.
“Thirty years ago, we were not sure that Martin would be our home, but we are proud to be a part of the Martin family,” Edie Gibson said.
She is her husband’s biggest supporter, saying she believes her husband’s love of learning has been instrumental to their children’s love of learning.
Brandt Gibson is a UTM senior double majoring in Organismal Biology and Geology. His interest is in Field Geology, which deals with land and water.
“My best experience being a student at UTM has been attending the Southeast Geological Society of America Meeting in Puerto Rico, which allowed me to sit in on seminars that were very influential,” Brandt Gibson said.
Like his father, Brandt stays busy. He is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Gamma Epsilon and the Earth Science Honor Society. He also holds three jobs: supplementary instructor of Geology, a technician for IT and a PEP leader for First Year Incoming Freshmen.
Recently, Brandt was selected to participate in a Vanderbilt Research Experience for Undergraduates funded by the National Science Foundation to work on “super volcanoes”in the American West. He did a week of field work during the winter break and will be doing an additional two months of field work this summer. He is also working on an experiment with a temporarily exposed lignite field (lignite is a precursor to coal). His goal is to determine how it was deposited on the Mississippi River. After graduation, he plans to attend graduate school. Although he isn’t sure what he wants to do after graduate school, he believes that a career in geology will be rewarding and that he will continue to do research on and near the water.
Brandt Gibson loves the water and is an avid scuba diver. His hobbies also include the restoration of musical instruments, and he is currently working on a drum.
“Growing up with Dad was fun. We traveled a lot and everything turned into a learning experience. I believe that my father’s passions have led me to have similar passions, as well,” Brandt Gibson said.
Kesley Gibson graduated from UTM in spring 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in Organismal Biology. While at UTM, she was involved with Sigma Gamma Epsilon, the Undergraduate Alumni Council and was a KA Southern Belle.
“Making the friends that I made was my favorite experience while at UTM,” Kesley Gibson said.
She later taught biology labs for UTM and continued to do research. She also worked for Dauphin Island Sea Lab with the Discovery Hall Program as a camp counselor for middle-school groups. In the summer of 2013, she volunteered in Dr. Sean Power’s lab and went out tagging sharks in the Gulf of Mexico. She is currently working on a Master of Science degree in Environmental Science at Troy University in Alabama and plans to graduate in the spring of 2015. Her thesis is on acute and chronic/sub-chronic toxicity testing on freshwater mussels, Vilosa lienosa, with the intention of adding some threatened and endangered species. After graduate school, she plans to complete her Ph. D., teach and conduct research.
“I love to read anything that I can get my hands on, something I got from my mom and dad,” Kesley Gibson said.
“Growing up with my dad was always exciting, entertaining and there was never a dull moment,” she said.
“I didn’t know too many kids that got to travel, see the things we did and experience the sciences. I got to do things like hold a moon rock, go behind the scenes at the museums and go on digs. I had so much fun doing it all.”
Kesley Gibson’s hobbies are swimming; walking her dog, Mokarran, whom she named after the hammerhead shark; and relaxing with friends. Her favorite childhood experience was a simple thing, one that many other little girls have probably done, too, but maybe not quite in the same way. It was walking on the beach with her dad. He is the one who really got her interested in science.
“He would explain the process happening on the beach, in the water and what organisms were involved,” Kesley Gibson said.
Although Kesley is not in the field of paleontology, like her father, she is studying the modern-day version of his invertebrates, known as bivalves.
The Gibson family, like so many others at UTM, came to Martin for a job, but found a home instead.
Go to the photo gallery “He Sought a Job; They Found a Home” to view more pictures of the Gibson family.
