PLSO The Oregon Surveyor January February 2021

25 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org L ast January, the profession lost a surveyor who left a lasting legacy in Central Oregon. Bill Kauffman, a na - tive of Grizzly, Oregon, passed away in Bend at the age of 77. In order to memo - rialize Bill’s outstanding contributions to the surveyors of Central Oregon, Gary DeJarnatt, PLS, and PLSO Central Chap - ter President John McCoy, PLS, led the effort to set a monument in honor of Kauffman. Bill was a hell of a surveyor. He lived and breathed surveying and was well versed in all facets of the profession—cadastral, construction, retracement, law, and plat - ting. He began working for the Deschutes County Road Department around 1973. Prior to that he had worked for the USGS doing plane table topo work for USGS quad maps, Bonneville Power Adminis - tration power line layout in Montana and Oregon, and worked for various private companies in Central Oregon including Green Empire (the predecessor to Centu - ry West Engineering) and Burton Brothers Engineering and Surveying. He was licensed in 1975 and was the Deschutes County Road Department’s survey manager until 1991, when he began working as Deputy for the Coun - ty Surveyor’s Office until his retirement in 2005. Bill’s work was excellent and it’s always a relief when you can lock on to his monuments because you know you’ll find them where his surveys show them, plus or minus a tenth. The crowning achievement to his career was the development of the Central Ore - gon Coordinate System, AKA the Central Oregon Grid. Bill was always on the cut - ting edge of technology and his career spanned the era of transit/chain and plane tables to early Electronic Distance Measuring instruments the size of suit - cases to top mount EDMs to electronic theodolites/EDMs to total stations and ultimately to GPS. Bill was a visionary. When GPS was in its infancy, Bill recognized that the emerg - ing technology would be a boon to the surveying community and “a more favor - able way to obtain survey control over conventional survey procedures.” In June of 1988, using rented Trimble 4000 GPS receivers, he began laying the frame - work for the Central Oregon Grid. Bill and Road Department surveyors Scott Freshwaters, PLS, and Roy Easter made 4-hour observations on various trian - gulation marks throughout the county. Scott recalls that the GPS constellation was about 10 active satellites at the time. The constellation was most robust during the night so they worked 10-hour night shifts requiring military precision and coordination to get two observations a night. Drive to Paulina Peak, set up, ob - serve for 4 hours, switching batteries when needed, end the session at the given time and then drive like mad to Wickiup Dam to set up at the predeter - mined time for the second observation of the night. In the meantime, the other surveyors were (hopefully) making their synchronized moves. Radio contact was spotty and cell phones were non-existent. Bill did all of the data processing, having taught himself the TrimNet-Plus program and serving as a key beta tester for Trimble during the development of this early GPS processing software. In 1990, the Road De - partment purchased three Trimble 4000 ST receivers. Road Department survey - ors Pete Manley, PLS, and Jack Smith also worked in the field making observations. The network was expanded into Crook and Jefferson counties with assistance from County Surveyors Dave Armstrong, PLS (Crook), and Gary DeJarnatt (Jeffer - son). The project also included redundant measurements, running level loops, set - ting random control monuments, setting witness posts, drawing up sketches, and writing descriptions. In 1991, the project was turned over to County Surveyor Jeff Kern’s office where Bill had transferred to from the Road Department. GPS was not commonplace at the time this work was being done and Bill made sure that some of the random control Bill Kauffman Memorial Monument William C. “Bill” Kauffman, Oregon PLS 1031 July 20, 1942–January 25, 2020 Featured Article Buddy the dog; Ron Grace; Geoff Wright; Jeff Johnson; Mike Berry, PLS; Gary DeJarnatt, PLS; Dave Williams, PLS; Andrew Kauffman; Bill Ham, PLS; Mabel Kauffman; and John McCoy, PLS. By Mike Berry, PLS continues T