PLSO The Oregon Surveyor March April 2020

2 The Oregon Surveyor  | Vol. 43, No. 2 From the Editor I have had a great career, though there were times in the middle of some torrential winter downpour on the southern Oregon coast when I questioned my own sanity, but I survived those experiences and lived to carry them in my toolkit. If I have one thing to say to the “youth” entering our profession, it’s pay attention, and always do your best to reap the bountiful benefits of mentorship. Greg Crites, PLS Editor MESSAGE EDITOR FROM THE My Final Editorial T his will be my final editorial for The Oregon Surveyor . Now that I’ve completely retired from active practice, I’ve had ample time to consid- er when would be an appropriate time to share my “Swansong.” My wife and I have always shared a desire to travel, so some time back we put together a buck- et list of destinations. Together with our travel advisor, our travel plans include destinations outside the U.S. Over the past several years we’ve been checking off some of those on that self-same list and, while doing so, it’s become quite clear that continuing to serve in any ca- pacity as editor of The Oregon Surveyor will make it difficult for the rest of the publication staff to get the magazine out in a timely fashion. This circumstance is what has precipitated my desire to turn over the editorial reins, so after much searching, we finally settled on an individual who I believe to be a well qualified replacement. Brian Portwood will assume the role of editor in an of- ficial capacity with the May/June issue of this magazine. You may have noticed his involvement already and I am deep- ly grateful to him for stepping forward to assume my post. I have assured him that though the role of editor sounds like a great burden, it in fact typically represents only a moderate investment of time and energy. Once he gets his feet under him, I’m sure the quality of our magazine will rise even further than where I’ve been able to take it during my nine-year tenure. Brian intends to put in place a team approach to the edito- rial role, to foster fuller participation of members of younger generations, which I fully support, so please step forward and collaborate with him, if you feel so inclined. This issue of themagazine contains some - thing of an obituary written by Brian about Don Karsch, someone who I only had the opportunity of getting to know over the last 5 years of my career. I came to respect his wealth of experience and admire his joviality in such a way that he will always stand out as a fine surveyor, one of many I’ve been blessed to become acquainted with throughout my nearly 45 years in the profession. It’s important to me to make note of a few of them in case their contri- butions to my professional development were overlooked, or due to their relative obscurity never received the recognition I think they deserved. I want to start with John Carlich, the Tilla- mook County Surveyor at the time I started my career. Though I wasn’t working as a land surveyor, I did have many occasions to meet with him and discuss surveying contractors that I was supervising while