Steve Smith tugged open the metal drawer of an old cement-lined filing cabinet in the archives of Wyomissing engineering firm Spotts, Stevens and McCoy.
Smith, 58, a senior project manager for SSM, randomly selected a linen-bound volume from the tightly packed rows of field logs inside.
“Look at this,” he said, examining the front page, on which the handwritten inscription read, “Sol. K. Dreibelbis, Hamburg, Pa., Aug. 15, 1882.”
“That’s only 93 years after George Washington, father of our country and surveyor extraordinaire, became president of the United States,” Smith said.
As a young man, Washington served about 16 months as surveyor of Culpeper County, Va. He also worked as an independent surveyor. He is credited with close to 200 maps and surveys of Virginia, according to the Library of Congress website.
Dreibelbis also worked as a county surveyor, serving Berks for 20 years until his death at age 59 in 1901.
Smith has something in common with both men: He, too, was educated as a surveyor.
A 1981 graduate of Lincoln Technical Institute in Allentown, Smith has directed all aspects of SSM’s surveying and data-capture services, including traditional land surveying, high-definition scanning and drone technology.
Despite a mastery of 21st century methods, Smith finds the traditional field surveys in the company’s archives — a treasure trove of old records dating to the mid-1800s — frequently come in handy.
“There isn’t a day that I come to work that I am not back here using this archive,” he said, waving his hand to indicate flat files stuffed with plans and maps, rolls of technical drawings stacked floor to ceiling and drawers of log books and property records.
While the surveying department uses the archives most, Mary Yeich, the firm’s title searcher, also frequents the dedicated space.
Yeich, 83, has been researching deeds since 1965, and joined SSM in 1988. Though dwarfed by the massive cases, cabinets and shelves of the archive, she slings around heavy fire insurance atlases with ease.
“Mary is the firm’s go-to when it comes to finding a record or plan,” said Brian R. Kelly, 59, SSM president and CEO.
Professional pedigree
Steve Smith, a senior project manager for Wyomissing engineering firm Spotts, Stevens and McCoy, examines one of the old field survey log books in the company’s archives.
Kelly is the son-in-law of firm founder Lewis J. McCoy, who began an engineering practice in 1967. The following year, he partnered with Charles H. Stevens, and in 1970, Stevens and McCoy acquired Spotts Engineering Associates, founded by Walter E. Spotts in 1932.
Spotts brought a legacy dating back even further than its founding, Smith said.
“Walter Spotts worked for Earle Frankhouser,” Smith explained, “and Frankhouser worked for William Dechant.”
Dechant, successor of an earlier firm, Kendall Brothers, opened his own engineering office in 1892. He was joined by his sons Frederick, an engineer, and Miles, an architect.
As William H. Dechant and Sons, the firm specialized in both disciplines and is best known for designing the Berks County Courthouse in 1930.
Some of the materials in SSM’s archives date to Dechant’s predecessors, Kelly said.
“The archives are unbelievable,” he said. “There is nothing else like it. Other firms call us because we are the keepers of all this.”
Eileen E. Kaley, 54, director of marketing and organizational development, agreed.
It is not unusual for someone to call regarding an old survey, she said.
“We have most of Berks County, and we know how a property was subdivided.”
