GSOC Past Presidents 1935-1939

1935

Dr. Edwin T. Hodge - GSOC Founder

Edwin T. Hodge was born in Atlanta, Illinois, on July 12, 1891.  His education was received in the North American Normal College, 1907; the University of Minnesota, from which he was given his B.A. degree in 1913, and his M.A. degree in 1915.  In 1916 he received his Ph.D. degree from Columbia University, and was awarded membership in Sigma Xi.

He was married to Lydia Herrick of Valparaiso, Indiana, on September 12, 1914, and has been a resident of Oregon since 1920.

In 1912 he was employed by the Minnesota Geological Survey, and by the Wisconsin Geological Survey in 1914. In 1915 he was geologist for the United States Government in Puerto Rico; in 1916 geologist for the Board of Appraisal and Apportionment, New York City. He became the head of the Department of Geology for the University of British Columbia in 1917, where he served until 1920. In that year he accepted the position of Professor of Economics and Geology for the University of Oregon, which he held until 1932.  Since then he has been Professor of Oregon Deposits at Oregon State College, Corvallis, the position he now holds (1949).  He is also consulting geologist for the United States and Canada to this date; was consulting geologist for Bonneville Dam; served the Board of Supplies of War Minerals in World War I; Director of Mineral Survey; Northwestern States Consultant, Bonneville Power Administration; Shell Oil Company 1940.  He worked with the U.S. Engineers from 1931 to 1940.

Dr. Hodge is a member of the Society of Economic Geologists; the American Institute of Mining Engineers; a fellow of the Geological Society of America; the American Mineral Society; Scottish Rite Mason; Republican, and Protestant.

He was instrumental in organizing the Geological Society of the Oregon Country in Portland in 1935 and was its first president. 

Reelected President, G.S.O.C., 1950.

1936

Clarence Delbert Phillips

Clarence Delbert Phillips was born in Superior, Wisconsin, on May 8, 1903. The family moved to Spokane, Washington, in 1906. He was educated in the public schools of Spokane.  During and after high school he worked in logging and lumber mills, and later was with the Spokane Title Company and the Northwestern Title Insurance Company until 1922. He then attended Willamette University at Salem, Oregon, where he received an LL.B. degree in 1925. While attending the University he served as secretary to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Oregon. He was admitted to the Oregon Bar in 1925, and has practiced law in Oregon since that time. He is a member of Sigma Chi social fraternity and Delta Theta Phi law fraternity.

From October 1925 to September 1926 he was deputy District Attorney in Jackson County, Oregon. In 1926 he moved to Portland and became associated with the firm of Griffith, Peck & Coke. In 1940 he was made a partner in the firm of Griffith, Peck, Phillips & Nelson, and is now a member of the firm of Griffith, Peck, Phillips and Coughlin.

Mr. Phillips is a member of the Portland City Club, of which he was president for one year during 1945-46. He was president of the Geological Society of the Oregon Country for one year during 1936-37. He is a Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Oregon, Past Eminent Commander of Oregon Commandery, Knights Templar of Oregon, and is at present a member of the Board of Governors of the Shriner's Hospital for Crippled Children at Portland, Oregon. He is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Portland.

Mr. Phillips was married to Mildred I. Tomlinson on December 31, 1928. They have one daughter and one son. They reside at 7630 S.E. Thirtieth Avenue.

1937

Albert Dunbar Vance

Mr. Vance was born on April 11, 1883, in Decorah, Iowa, where he attended grammar and high school and made his home until 1906. His formal education was obtained at the University of Wisconsin, where he majored in Civil Engineering.

In 1906 he went to Big Horn Basin, Wyoming, on a government land survey contract, and in the fall of that year was appointed a United States Deputy Land Surveyor for Wyoming. With S. W. Brunt as a partner, the firm took contracts for the survey of twelve townships; contracts were completed in 1908.

During the winter of 1907 and through 1908, with the exception of that summer, Mr. Vance worked for the Reclamation Service on the Shoshone project, including work on the Shoshone dam surveys. When he resigned in 1910 to move to Portland, he was in charge of survey party on canal location and construction on the Ralston Unit of the Shoshone Project.

From November 1910 to January 1916 he worked for the City of Portland; from February 1916 to October 1916 he was employed as surveyor draftsman, field mapping a timber cruiser for the U.S. Forest Service. From November 1916 to October 1920 he worked at shipbuilding, starting with the Columbia Engineering Works on engineering for launching ways, and ending with the Coast Shipbuilding. He started with the latter firm as chief draftsman in June 1917 and when he completed his ship­building experience in 1920 he was Superintendent of Construction.

After a year each with the Portland Dock Commission and the Port of Portland, Mr. Vance returned to city service in 1923,  working through the positions of draftsman, senior engineer, assistant to City Engineer (1929 to 1939).  In June 1939 he was appointed Assistant to Commissioner of Public Works William A. Bowes, which position he still holds (1950).

On January 19, 1911, Mr. Vance was married to Florence Juliet Oviatt of Missouri Valley, Iowa, and Powell, Wyoming. They have two children - a daughter, now Mrs. William M. Hiney, Jr., of Los Angeles, Calif., and Albert D. Vance, Jr., of Portland, Oregon.

Mr. Vance is a member of the Presbyterian Church and a lifelong Republican in national politics.

1938

Ray C. Treasher

Ray C. Treasher was born in Chicago, Illinois, on July 28, 1898. At the age of five he moved to Sterling, Illinois, and to Sunnyside, Washington, at fourteen. In 1916 he started to Washington State College, but took time out during World War I, returning to college in 1919. He was again out for two years, and in 1922 completed the rest of his collegiate work.

After three and a half years of mining engineering, Mr. Treasher switched to geology and was graduated with a B.S. degree in geology in 1925. A teaching fellowship in 1925 allowed an M.S. degree in geology. He was instructor in geology at Washington State College in 1925-1926 on a one-year contract.

In 1926 he went to University of Oregon on a teaching fellowship with work toward a PhD. Lack of finances terminated that work and he taught geology and science in Livingston, Montana, and Longview, Washington. The depression "froze" him in that work until 1936,when the Oregon State Planning Board employed him to write a bibliography of Oregon geology. Following that assignment he worked for slightly over a year with the Corps of Engineers, Portland Division, on a mineral survey of the Pacific Northwest.

In 1937 Mr. Treasher went from there to the Department of Geology and Mineral Industries of the State of Oregon, where he served in Portland until 1940. During that time he joined the Geological Society of the Oregon Country and served a very enjoyable year (1938-1938) as president of that remarkable group.

In 1940 he went to Grants Pass for the Oregon Department and was in charge of the field office until late in 1943, when he accepted a position as engineering geologist for the Corps of Engineers at Sacramento, California. There he worked under the direction of another ex-member of the G.S.O.C., Mr. Claire Holdredge, where he still remains at this date (1950).

Early in 1950 Mr. Treasher assisted in organizing the Sacramento Geological Society, a group of about fifty professional geologists in the Sacramento area, and served as chairman for several months during the organization period.

Ray Treasher was married in Livingston, Montana, on Christmas Eve, 1927, to a schoolgirl chum, Miss Jessie Landon. They have no children. His hobbies include color photography, fishing and geology.

1939

Arthur Maine Piper

Arthur Maine Piper was born September 20, 1898, in Thomaston, Maine. He was graduated from Tufts College in l919, M.S. (metal); Idaho in 1920, M.S. (Geol.)1925.

He was employed as topographer by the Idaho Bureau of Mines and Geology, 1920-21; assistant geologist, 1921-22, and geologist 1922-26.  In 1926 he was staff scientist with the Economist Survey Expedition, ex-Japanese mandated Islands, West Pacific. Civilian with U.S.A.; U.S.N., 1918.

Mr. Piper is a fellow of the Geological Society, a member of the Geophysics Union, the Society of Economic Geologists. He is a specialist in ground-water geology, stratigraphy, geomorphology, and Pleistocene deposits.

Mr. Piper was married in 1923 and has two children.