14 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 45, No. 5 Member Spotlight Curt Chappell www.oregonsurveyor.net By Vanessa Salvia Some people don’t have to look far to find an introduction to the surveying profession. Curt Chappell, who runs a surveying business in California, has a brother who is a land surveyor along with a grandfather who is a civil engineer. “The profession was on my radar,” Chappell says. After college, Chappell had a bachelor’s in business administration with an option in logistics and operations management and worked in marketing post-college but was looking for something different. He opted to return to school to pursue aerospace engineering and took a job at a civil engineering firm in the Bay Area called Brian Kangas Foulk. He took more classes related to land surveying and, since he worked part-time for an engineering firm, ended up transitioning full time into the career. “While working at Brian Kangas Foulk I found out I really like this profession, and decided to change gears and pursue that,” he says. “I liked the mix of the field and the office aspects and the history of the profession, so I pivoted and then started accumulating hours and studying to get my license in California.” Chappell started his own business, Pacific Crest Surveying, about 25 years ago. At that time, he was doing consulting on the side and has also consulted off and on over the past two and a half decades, but then transitioned into more serious full-time work over the past seven years. Pacific Crest Surveying does a little bit of every type of land surveying, Chappell says. “All the way from single-family residential remodel additions to large commercial sites,” he says. “Currently our marquee project is that we’re doing all the front end land surveying for the new Facebook campus. So, we do that sort of thing and everything in between.” Chappell is licensed in California and Oregon. Although Chappell grew up in California, he has a brother not in the land surveying profession who lives in Oregon. He loves the environment in Oregon, and some day, Chappell says, he plans on retiring there. He sat for and passed his Oregon license last year and opened a small office in Ashland. That helped lead him to PLSO. “I have a lot of connections in surveying here in California, peers that I can chat with about things, but I didn’t really know anybody in the Ashland area,” he explains. “So, I visited a few surveyors in Ashland, and they mentioned getting involved in PLSO, which I did.” After that, he just happened to see an advertisement for the Finance Chair. “Since finance was part of my former life, I thought it would be a good fit,” he says. “I had the degree and a little bit of experience in it. I thought it made sense as a way to help out the community and meet some people.” Chappell goes on to say that he really loves the land surveying profession and that his life and career path worked out for the best for him because he didn’t You can show up to work and do your survey work, and then go home, but being involved in the profession more is very rewarding.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTY1NDIzOQ==