24 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 45, No. 2 ADVERTISING RATES STARTING AT $275! Professional Listings Featured Article sharpening iron. Red marks on the survey map made me see red, so I learned to be careful about the review criteria and pay attention to statutory requirements. In 2003, Bill retired and I bought Azimuth Surveying. Co-worker and later employee Wayne Brown opened my eyes to the sense of practicality a carpenter could bring to surveying and the value of persistence with a shovel (eight feet deep for one section corner). Co-worker and later employee Dudley Berry showed me new tricks for finding bearing trees. There were attorneys, too. Working with Norm Hill, Mike Martinis, Wes Hill, Keven Shuba, Wally Lien, and others on disputed boundaries, OSBEELS contested cases, mediations, and arbitrations advanced my skills with legal aspects and liabilities of boundary surveying. The events that polished my land surveying skills might be viewed as happy coincidences. I would argue that not all of my experiences were so happy. Furthermore, I believe that the skills I have are neither accidental nor of my own design. I believe that all events, both good and bad, are directed by God for the good of his people and for His glory. So, although I have given effort, the skills I have are not of my arranging. Gratitude for these skills and the events and people who contributed, then, requires of me righteousness, justice, and equity. In the Biblical view, these have strong implications of giving sacrificially to the community. I look forward to the opportunity to do a little of that by serving as Chairman of the Legislative Committee. My plan for serving will include a proposal to work with other groups like the Real Estate Attorney’s Legislative Committee to build coalitions that will not be easily ignored by the legislators, county commissioners, or city councilors. We will also need input from both city and county surveyors as well as private surveyors from both rural and urban parts of the state. If you notice a statute or ordinance relating to surveying that is not working or needlessly imposes costs on the public, send me an email with the problem and your suggestion for repairs. My email address is jim@azimuth-surveying.com. “What happened to the pretty blond?” you ask. We just welcomed our seventh grandson and celebrated our 30th anniversary. Dad drove a log truck for a while and finished his working years driving a lumber truck for a local sawmill. The timber industry had changed. There was no increase in pay for his last 20 years of working. Somewhere in the late ’80s or early ’90s dad went hunting with me up the Clackamas River drainage. We passed an enormous area of windfallen, old-growth pickup sticks. There had been a wind storm a few years earlier. “It’s a shame to see that going to waste. I used to cut patches like that. Sometimes I’d go ‘round for half a day trying to figure out where to make the first cut without getting killed,” he said. He did those things so I could do something better. Together, let’s try to do something better for the community. x continuedT
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