16 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 45, No. 4 Member Spotlight Lee Spurgeon Township Surveys www.townshipsurveys.com By Vanessa Salvia In 1977, Lee Spurgeon took a job with “probably the worst surveyor on the planet,” a surprising first chapter that started with the surveyor in a hole with the rest of the crew either quitting or fired. He didn’t develop his career in surveying until 25 years later, when he took a job with his stepfather, who happened to be a drafter. In the intervening years, Spurgeon taught aviation maintenance in the United Arab Emirates, did stand-up comedy, was a teacher of electronics and robotics, and earned a degree in psychology. This degree proved to be surprisingly useful in his surveying career. A jobsite scuffle between the construction crew and the surveying crew next to a 12-foot-deep trench left the owner of the surveying company in the trench, with his crew unwilling to help him because he had just fired them all, although they did provide him a shovel. “He hired my friend to take the place of the crewmembers that he just fired and that left an opening on the survey crew my friend had left, so that’s how I got into surveying,” Spurgeon says. At the time, he was making screened windows for 3 cents apiece which he says was “the worst job you could possibly ever think of,” so any other job seemed like an improvement. “I applied for the job and told them I didn’t know anything about surveying but I was willing to work hard,” he recalls. “On the first day, the crew chief was hung over and didn’t want to pound hubs into the ground. And I said, ‘Hey, why don’t you let me try that?’ So they did. By the end of the day they said, ‘Alright, you’re no longer rear chainman, you’re head chainman,’ which was a promotion in the first eight hours of being in the job!” Despite that encouraging first experience, Spurgeon didn’t stick with the surveyor with the terrible temper and other character flaws. Later, his mother married a drafter and he had nothing else going on and the pay was decent, so in 1993 he started drafting at Love Land Surveys. “Turns out, I had some talent for drafting and I just kept on doing it, because it was a family obligation,” he says. “But eventually, I started to enjoy it.” Thanks to the psychology background, Spurgeon enjoyed being able to help people who were feuding about their property lines, which is something that a lot of surveyors try to avoid. “People would be brandishing weapons at each other and things like that but by the time we left, you know, we would have peace in the neighborhood,” he says. “By using my degree in psychology, I was able to resolve a lot of conflicts.” He also ended up going to court quite often as an expert witness, which is where the psychology background, in addition to working with a really experienced trial attorney, really paid off. He recalls a big job in Columbia County in which one family member handed over A jobsite scuffle between the construction crew and the surveying crew next to a 12-foot-deep trench left the owner of the surveying company in the trench, with his crew unwilling to help him because he had just fired them all, although they did provide him a shovel.
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