PLSO The Oregon Surveyor Nov/Dec 2018

16 The Oregon Surveyor  | Vol. 41, No. 6 O f the people I’ve known over my many years, there are few that have had a more profound influ- ence on my life than Tom McCullough. I would like to tell some of the experi- ences we shared together. Constraints of space don’t allow me to expound as much as I would like, so I will hit some of the highlights. Tomwas born on April 14 1935 in Enum- claw Washington and passed away in Nashville Tennessee on August 18, 2018 after a lengthy illness. Tomwas the oldest of three children: Mike, two years younger (deceased) and sister, Margret, 10 years younger. He spent his youth in Enumclaw (he called it Enum- scratch). After graduating high school he entered the University of Washington College of Forestry and majored in forest management. He missed a year of grade school as he was recovering from polio which caused one of his feet to be slight- ly misshapen. This required him to have his boots specially made. Thank good- ness the disease was not crippling and it certainly didn’t slow him down, either physically or mentally. I first met Tomwhen I came to Anderson Hall, the school of forestry building, at the U of W in the fall of 1955. I had come to facilitate my transfer from Everett Junior College. He was there to introduce himself to new students and attempt to recruit them into Tau Phi Delta, a forestry frater- nity near campus. Tomwas a natural born salesman and it didn’t take long for him to convince me that belonging to Tau Phi was the best thing that could ever happen to me. I had no idea what frat people did nor did I have any idea how I was going to pay the required dues. I was living off campus with my brother, so I signed on as a town member. Even though I didn’t live in the house I was still a full fledged brother, and could participate in all the social activities. The latter was Tom’s big selling point. Tomwas in his second year at the U and I was going into my 3rd. Trans- fer of credits was a problem, so it cost me an extra year. Because of that, Tom and I spent 3 years together at the U of Dub and both graduated in 1958. Tom spent a couple of summers smoke jumping in Montana and Idaho. He liked to tell of a time his crew jumped on a fire on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho. They put out the fire and were told to hike out, along with all their gear, to Mackie’s Bar where they would be picked up and transported back to their station. All Tom could think of was that if there was a bar there then there had to be cold beer. As it turned out the bar was a gravel bar in the river and a dirt landing strip. A plane landed and took them out. No cold beer at Mackie’s Bar. After graduation we went our separate ways. I was immediately drafted into the army and Tom began his forestry career with the Oregon State Department of For- estry out of Tillamook. After a short time with the Department, he went to work for a private forestry consulting firm. His job required him to travel a lot. I think his main task was cruising timber to deter- mine value for tax purposes. After my army service, I took a job with the Ore- gon State Forestry Department in Coos Bay and later as a log buyer for a paper mill in North Bend. Tom and I had been out of contact with each other for proba- bly four or five years when one day I got a call from him as he was passing through Coos Bay. We had lunch, caught up on the times, and then he was off. Not long after that I got another call saying he was going to be in town for a Society of American Foresters convention. We got together and had a few shots of Bushmill (his favorite Irish whiskey), whereupon his salesman mode kicked in again. Long story short he had obtained his survey- ors license and started a surveying and forestry consulting business in Corvallis. I was still single and tired of Coos Bay so it didn’t take toomuch convincing to get me to come to Corvallis to at least talk about relocating. I remember the day. The in- terview was at his house and consisted of whether or not I could set up and read the vernier on a K & E Paragon transit. I had taken one survey class at Everett so I kind of remembered how to do it. What- ever I did was good enough for Tom and that launched our working relationship for the next 13 years and a friendship that lasted until his death. I began working for Tom in 1966. One of my first tasks was to work on a crew to complete construction for the relocation of a three mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington. The north end of the project was about five miles by trail south of Stevens Pass and the south end about 10 miles north of the end of the road up the Salmon La Sac River out of Cle Elum. Tom never told me what possessed him to take on a venture like that. It certainly had nothing to do with surveying or for- est consulting. His dad had retired from the Forest Service so he and Tom bid the job together. The job pretty much con- sumed his summers for at least 3 years. Everything had to be packed in on his dad’s pack string. That included food, tools, beer, tents, and lots of dynamite. It was a daunting task, but I never heard a word from Tom saying he regretted tak- ing the job. It was full speed ahead and get’r done. In 1967 we decided to combine our tal- ents and start a new company. Thus was born McCullough, Bryant and Associates. Tom McCullough   1935 to 2018 In Memoriam By Dick Bryant