Robert Wetherell:  

nds from Tifton were also there and we had many nights of front row seats at the bar listening to Micheal Stipe and Pete Buck of REM.....those were really good times. Eventually my girlfriend dumped me, then asked to come back, then I dumped her. Great girl but not for me.... I studied Landscape Architecture while in Athens only because I could find nothing else I was interested in. I made it through a tough 5 year degree in just one quarter over the 5 year mark due only to a break to act as project manager for the construction of my parents new house in SC (By the way, Jeff Pruden, if you read this, I own a lot to you and our time in high school working together for your dad and Prestige Homes...remember Larry!?). I graduated in 1985 from UGA and went to work...... Workplace In 1986 I went to work in the private sector as a landscape architect at an engineering and survey firm in Concord, NC. I did alot of subdivision layout and had another hard ass boss that pushed me to work 50-60 hrs/wk for $7.50/hr. Rewind one year.....In my last year at UGA i had been required to work an internship with a landscape architecture firm. I poked around looking for the right job(preferably a paid and not a volunteer position). I noticed a 3x5 card posted next to the elevator outside the dean's office for volunteer positions working with the US Forest Service in Alaska. So mutch for the paid position... I went to Alaska and changed everything. I was stationed in Ketchikan and worked on the largest National Forest in the US, the Tongass. Ketchikan is located in sthe southern southeast portion of the Alask panhandle and is located on an island. In fact when I stepped off the jet I discoverd that you had to take a ferry from the airport just to get to town. What a wonderful summer of flying in floatplanes to remote cabins and conducting trail surveys in the backcountry. The fishing and wildlife was incredible. Before I left I had filled out a job application for the next year think I would take the summer after graduation to come back to AK and work as a paid employee on a trail construction crew. My plans were somewhat fulfilled in that I came back as a member but only as a volunteer since I had gotten bumped by a veteran for the position. Another great summer ensued and I saw more cool places and caught a hell of alot of salmon and halibut.....but I had to go back to make money and wond up in Concord, NC. After working from October of 1985 to March of 1986 I got a call one day from a Forest Service employee in Ketchikan wanting to know if I was interested in a job as a surveyor for the summer. It paid the same money as I was making and it ws in AK so I gave my notice (much to the chagrin of my boss who then tried to brib me with a raise) and left 2 weekks later in a 1 year old black Ford pickup with everything I owned. Well, it took several years but I finally weaseled my way into a permanent job as a landscape architect for the Thorne Bay Ranger District on the Tonagass NF. However, I only worked seasonally and as a volunteer for awhile (they pay room and board) and became a commercial fisherman to have pocket money. Many stories about checking tons of fish and strange happenings out in the Gulf of AK. I worked at out of Thorne Bay from 1989 to 2002 and then moved to St Ignace MI in the UP. Still with the Forest Service this seemed like a good place to aclimatize to 'America' instead of getting the full immersion (the UP is a strange place!). After a year there we moved to Warren, PA where I am now. I am now a program manager for the Recreation, Wilderness, and Rivers program on the Allegheny NF. My job has been very fulfilling and has flexible hours plus the added advantage of being out in the woods when I want to go. Warren is just another brief (I hope) stop on the way to either NC (where my mom and dad are still kicking strongly)or back to the Pacific NW or maybe back to AK.