Tom Overton, managing editor of Gems & Gemology, was elected to serve a three-year term with the Association of Earth Science Editors that began this past September. Overton will lead the AESE in its mission to enhance cooperation among editors and promote effective dissemination of earth science information.

Gems & Gemology is the quarterly journal of the Gemological Institute of America.

Overton is currently AESE’s vice president, in charge of program planning for the 2008 annual meeting. He will spend his second year of service as president, overseeing AESE’s operations and coordinating memberships and activities of the various committees, and his third as past president, recruiting members of committees and candidates for board positions.

Overton said he is honored by the election because it comes from an organization that has been around since the 1960s and counts representatives of all the major earth science organizations among its members.

“One of the things I’m hoping to accomplish in this new role is to help raise the profile of gemology as one of the earth sciences,” said Overton, an AESE member since 2002. “Also, editing is one of those careers that you never perfect; you just keep learning more with each new experience and opportunity. I’m definitely looking to learn a few things from my AESE colleagues.”

Overton served as a nuclear reactor operator in the U.S. Navy prior to earning a B.A. in English from the University of Southern California and a law degree from UCLA. He spent time as a practicing attorney specializing in matters of intellectual property and later as managing editor of a California legal publisher. He joined the G&G staff in 2002. He has since earned his Graduate Gemologist diploma from GIA and is completing a diploma in gemology from the Gemmological Association of Great Britain.

JCK