JEAN D. PORTELL has served as an assistant sculpture conservator at each of these institutions: the Brooklyn Museum (starting in 1962-64, while still Jean Daniels), then part-time at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the former Nelson Rockefeller Museum of Primitive Art (NYC), and the Museum of Modern Art. She ran a solo private practice from 1986 until 2004, when she retired from doing hands-on conservation.

Since retiring, she has continued doing archival research about art conservation developments in the 20th century, sharing her findings by presenting talks to colleagues, and occasionally publishing articles. Her life goal is to complete and publish a fact-based biography of the late Sheldon and Caroline Keck, who helped launch her career. Jean's description of the Kecks’ long personal and professional relationship with Dr. Paul Coremans can be found in Chapter 14 of KIK-IRPA's Scientia Artis series, Volume 15, (2018), which is a compilation of articles based on the presentations made during the 2015 Paul Coremans Symposium, held in Brussels.

Jean's current side-mission is to establish a new category of discussions exchanged in the Online Community: Member Discussions area of AIC's website. If this idea takes hold, we could call ourselves the Old Guard Professional Conservators Community (OGPCC). Ideally, openly shared discussions among AIC's long-time members with several decades of professional experience will become as helpful to AIC's growing membership as the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network (ECPN) already is.