20 Header The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 46, No. 2 Member Spotlight By Vanessa Salvia Scott Freshwaters is PLSO’s incoming Board Chair-Elect, and will become the Chair after Tim Fassbender’s term is over after this year. Many of you likely already know Scott from his work in Bend and Sunriver and his involvement with PLSO since the early 1980s. He comes from a family of engineers — his father was a civil engineer, a grandfather was an electrical engineer, and one of his grandfather’s brothers was a mechanical engineer. While he has that in his blood, so to speak, his family also didn’t pressure him to become an engineer. “They left that up to me,” he says. And his path led him to surveying. “In high school, probably 10th or 11th grade, I did a work study program with the U.S. Forest Service. My boss and I would go out and update trail maps on the Deschutes National Forest.” His boss showed him how to use a stereo plotter, where you take two aerial photographs and put them together as a stereo pair in order to map a new section of the Pacific Crest Trail near Diamond Peak. Scott says he always enjoyed maps and mapping, but in college pursued an Associate of Science degree in electronics technology. Then he and his wife, Dee Anna, moved to Sunnyvale, California, to work in the electronics industry. After living in Bend, California just didn’t hit the mark, so they moved back after nine months. Not long after, he noticed an opening for an engineering assistant position with Deschutes County, which he applied for and got. “That job entailed working on a survey crew, and further down the path designing roads, researching old records, and working for the county surveyor reviewing plats,” Scott says. “And I really enjoyed being outdoors and doing that work, and the office work was alright.” Scott surveyed for the county for 30 years. He retired in 2008 and started his own surveying firm. Scott says the county encouraged his education and sent him to seminars and conferences, He achieved licensure in 1987. Scott and Dee Anna’s eldest son, Luke, has a Bachelor of Science degree in surveying from Oregon Institute of Technology. Luke works for Burlington Northern Railroad and helps his father out on surveying jobs on weekends when he’s available. Scott got involved with PLSO while working for the county with Dave Hoerning in the surveying department. “Dave told me, now that you have passed your LSIT exam, you’re going to join PLSO,” recalls Scott. “He didn’t say ‘you should,’ he said ‘you’re going to join PLSO and here’s the application.’” Scott says PLSO has been “very beneficial” over the years. “Networking, the continuing education, promoting the profession,” he says. “The conferences are great, because you get to see and talk to people, and you may only see them once a year but you develop a relationship with them. It’s a great organization.” Scott has also served as the Legislative Committee Chair. At the next board meeting in March, the group will be tackling the organization’s strategic plan to improve the organization and increase membership, get more involvement from younger surveyors, and also bring more people into Scott Freshwaters, PLS Freshwaters Surveying Inc. Taken in 1990 at an existing control point off Skyliner Road, west of Bend. Taken during a 2000 survey in Laidlaw (now Tumalo. The wooden peg is an original 1904 Lot Corner that is also a Block Corner.
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