Josh develops and delivers educational programming for students and other Museum visitors, including an annual series of public events. He also designs exhibits and tours DEA staff, their guests, and the general public through the Museum’s interactive and educational gallery. Josh holds a Master of Arts in museum studies and a Bachelor of Arts in history and is an active member of the Society for History in Federal Government. Before moving to Washington, DC, he interned for the Palm Springs Art Museum and the Malki Museum of the Cahuilla Tribe of Morongo Indians; completed a fellowship with the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands; and volunteered for many years as a Public Arts Commissioner for the City of Palm Springs and with Equality California, one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights advocacy nonprofits.
Josh likes teaching guests about popular figures in narco-culture, especially the folk saint Santa Muerte. The Museum’s collection includes a plaster, cloth, and paper-mache statue of this patron saint of drug dealers, an increasingly common symbol in communities along smuggling routes in Northern Mexico and across the U.S.-Mexico border. The gruesome Grim Reaper stands 3.5 feet tall, wields a jeweled scythe, is clad in fake one-hundred-dollar bills, and grins menacingly despite missing its right hand. DEA agents broke the statue’s arm in search of hidden contraband after discovering it belted to the back seat of two drug dealers’ car.