9 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org Featured Article to proceed and get what I needed, we were pretty good buddies, since I was in full sympathy with his situation. Other incidents come to mind. Toward the end of my career, I worked on a crew that was tasked to collect as-built information on the power grid for a major electric company here in central Oregon. The contract called for recording and mapping all of their distribution systems. This included all of their overhead lines such as poles, wire, phasing, transformers, switches, and fuses. It even included getting the serial number from the meter at the house. This meant going onto every customer’s property to reach the meter. It also required crossing private property if that was where the power line happened to go. Not all of the lines were along a road. Information about each item had to be recorded and a map created showing where that item was located. We asked for some sort of authorization from the power company that would allow us this access. Like whether they had easements. Perhaps letters notifying customers what we would be doing and why. Identifying decals or such on our vehicles would have helped. All these suggestions were ignored and we were pretty much left on our own when it came to dealing with the property owners. As expected, we had numerous questions from customers as to what and why we were on their property. One time I drove up to a residence and told the lady that I needed to get the ID number off of her meter. About that time her husband drove up and began to question my presence. I told him I was a surveyor and my purpose for being there. When I mentioned “surveyor,” he became suspicious and asked if I was really there to do a survey on his neighbor’s property. I assured him that I was not. He told me that if I had been he would have run my, at that time, skinny butt right off his property. Apparently, he and his neighbor didn’t get along. I didn’t wait around long enough to find out what their beef was. Another time I had to go behind a lady’s house to get to her meter. She was out on her deck sunning herself. Luckily, she was fully clothed, but not happy about my intrusion. Several other times I was questioned as to my intentions. If it was apparent that they were overly suspicious, I would give the person our office number, and let them know that they could call for verification. Some did. On this job, I was never denied access, but at times things were tense and it was a real pain to put up with the hassle. Door hangers would have been of no help as we were probably hitting up to a dozen houses a day in built-up areas. Leaving a door hanger and having to go back the next day was not an option. It was an interesting job, at times frustrating, and so a good one with which to close out a satisfying career. Dick Bryant was featured as our Member Spotlight in the November / December 2021 Oregon Surveyor (https://www.associationpublications. com/flipbook/plso/2021/NovDec/index.html, page 8). He celebrated 50 (+1) years of licensure on September 22, 2021. Dick was licensed as Oregon Registered Professional Land Surveyor #920 in July 1970. He was voted PLSO Surveyor of the Year and was awarded Life Membership in 2004. In 1967, he and Tom McCullough formed McCullough, Bryant, and Associates.
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