Paleonet: James H. McLean

[Lindsey Groves]

To the paleomollusk community:

                                It is my sad malacological duty to report that former LACM Malacology curator James H. McLean passed away last Friday, November 11th at age 80.  Jim joined the museum staff as curator of Invertebrate Zoology in 1964 whilst completing his PhD at Stanford under Myra Keen.  He worked to build the IZ section into what would become the world-class sections of Crustacea, Echinoderms, Polychaetes, and Malacology.   Jim traveled extensively worldwide to build the mollusk collection and obtained several NSF grants to house the growing collections.  Along with LACM Ichthyology curator emeritus Bob Lavenberg, Jim helped to acquire the vast Alan Hancock Foundation and the UCLA collections.  He published over 100 peer reviewed papers in major malacological journals, described over 300 molluscan taxa, and was honored by colleagues who named at least 27 species for him.  He retired in 2001 but continued his daily routine of research until 2014 when his declining health started to take it's toll.   Jim's career goal to produce a monograph of the shelled gastropods of the eastern Pacific from central Baja, California to Arctic Alaska is being continued by 30+ worldwide specialists and will be edited by Daniel Geiger (Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History), Jann Vendetti (NHMLAC Malacology), and yours truly.  Jim was a devout liberal, a Rolling Stones fan, and collected succulents from all over the world.  This year the Western Society of Malacologists commemorates its 50th anniversary and will be held, very appropriately, in Los Angeles at the Natural History Museum of LA County and the University of Southern California with Jann Vendetti as President.  Remembrances for Jim (Past WSM president 1974) and Bill Emerson (past WSM president, 1969) will be included.  Donations may be made to the James H. McLean Student Grant in Collections-Based Research, see http://westernsocietymalacology.org/grants/james-h-mclean-student-grant-in-collections-based-research/ for details.   I will always be grateful to Jim as he hired me in 1988 to fulfill a NSF grant and I'm still here nearly 29 years later.  Thank you Jim!

Aloha,

Lindsey


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Lindsey T. Groves
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Malacology Section, Collection Manager
900 Exposition Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA  90007
lgroves at nhm.org
213-763-3376 (voice)
213-746-2999 (fax)
http://www.nhm.org/site/research-collections/malacology/staff-biographies
"Take it to the limit ... one more time" Eagles (1977) [Don Henley, Glenn Frey, & Randy Meisner]
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