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The Oregon Surveyor
|
Vol. 39, No. 6
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surveyors to talk to each
other as comrades instead
of competitors.
In the early 1960s Orv heard
about a group of surveyors
in the Portland area that
was striving to form an
organization that would
promote and enhance the
profession of surveying. He
traveled to Portland and
met with these surveyors
to understand what their
ideas and goals were with
hopes that maybe this could
become a statewide idea.
He returned to Eugene and
called a meeting with the
local surveyors where they
drafted by-laws for the PLSO
which lead to the forming
the Midwest Chapter and
the statewide organization.
In 1966, Orv left John Quiner
Engineering and started his
own surveying practice. His
last survey was filed at the
Lane County Surveyor’s Office in 2010, spanning 50
years of surveying.
Orv served as President of the Midwest Chapter of
the PLSO and in 1973 was Chair of the PLSO Board of
Directors, and was awarded PLSO Life Membership.
He also served as a volunteer consultant for the
Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineers and
Land Surveyors.
Orv was an avid outdoorsman. He loved to snow
ski to the point that he served on the ski patrol for
Hoodoo and Willamette ski bowls. He hunted deer
and elk (as he said mostly just to get away from the
phone) and in his later years to get in the boat and go
fishing, (he may have even put a hook at the end of
the line sometimes).
In Memoriam: Orville Caswell
Orville Oscar Caswell
PLS 494 May 13, 1960
Born March 9, 1928. Passed Away September 22, 2016
O
rville passed away
leaving a large void
in the Oregon surveying
profession that will likely
never be filled. Orv was
born and raised in Eugene.
He attended Eugene
High and transferred to
University High and excelled
in playing football at both
offensive and defensive
tackle positions. Before
attending the University
of Oregon, he worked for
the Forest Service packing
supplies and repairing
phone lines to lookout
towers and maintaining
trails. While working
for the State Highway
Department (known now as
the Oregon Department of
Transportation), Orv always
commented about his work
there as, “this is where
I learned how to pound
stakes and I don’t need to
learn any more about pounding stakes”.
While attending the University of Oregon, he was
drafted into the Army where he served as a medic in
the Korean War and was honorably discharged.
Upon being discharged from the Army, he returned
to Eugene and worked for 9 years with John Quiner
Engineering. During this time of Orv’s career, he
started a practice which was considered unique for
the area. If he was following another Surveyors work
and had any questions about it, he would either
call or stop by their office and ask if they could help
him understand why they did their survey in such a
way. At that time in the Eugene area, that was not a
common practice. Orv would do this in a very polite,
professional manner that gained a lot of respect
in the local survey community and encouraged