Underground Construction - March 2020 - 31

REHABTECHNOLOGY

Lynn Osborn

I've read about other NASSCO Standard
Bearers and how their fathers swept
them into the industry to follow a family
legacy of maintaining underground
infrastructure. That's not my story!
Growing up in a small town on the plains
of western Kansas, the closest I came to
sewer service was messing around with
my friends at the sewage treatment plant
about a half-mile from where we lived.
My story's a little different. My dad
owned a hardware store and sold home
appliances, and hunting and fishing equipment. I recall an unfortunate incident
when one of his employees got trapped
under a house during a furnace installation
and had to be cut out of the floor. As a
12-year old, I fit the bill to step in and help
run ducts through crawl spaces. Sometimes
I wouldn't fit under the floor joists, but my
small frame could easily crawl through the
18-inch space between joists.
After high school I went to Kansas
Wesleyan University and spent summers
on a harvest crew cutting wheat to pay my
tuition. I received a degree in biology and
chemistry, but at 22 years old I had no idea

what I wanted to do next. I had applied to
medical school but had to wait a year to
enroll, so for the next summer I continued
working as a member of the harvest crew.
One day in 1969, while cutting wheat in
North Dakota, my boss let me know I received my draft notice. It was the last few
months of the draft for the Vietnam War
and, to select my specialty, I enlisted in the
Army. After I completed basic training at
Fort Jackson, S.C., I went on to Fort Lee,
Va., where after six months of training, I
became an instructor for the petroleum
school - transporting, storing and testing
petroleum products - until I got my orders
to report to Vietnam in 1971. My wife Ivy
and oldest daughter were living with me
in Virginia, so we loaded up the car and
I drove my family back to Kansas to live,
while I completed my tour.
I was discharged and returned home in
1972. Still not knowing what I wanted to
do in life, I had purchased a semi-tractor
and was moving mobile homes around the
central part of the U.S. That same summer,
at Canyon Lake Dam in Rapid City, S.D.,
the spillway became clogged with debris
following heavy rains and the dam failed
- resulting in severe flooding. It was
devastating. More than 1,300 homes and
thousands of automobiles were destroyed,
but even more devastating were the
3,000 injuries and sadly, 238 deaths that
resulted from the dam break.
I worked with the federal government
to move mobile homes to Rapid City
to provide housing for the displaced
residents. I continued doing this until one
day a driver ran a red light, causing me
to T-bone her car. Luckily, she was not
seriously injured, but it woke me up to
the fact that I needed to make a change.
I sold the tractor and entered graduate
school at the University of Kansas, an
opportunity that would not have been
possible without Ivy supporting our
growing family as a registered nurse.

EDITOR'S NOTE:
NASSCO continues to set standards for
the assessment and rehabilitation of
underground infrastructure. A vast array of
individuals has contributed to the success
of the association, both in the past and
present, and has driven NASSCO's industry
mission. This series of articles recognizes
those who have not only been critical to the
success of NASSCO, but the industry as well.
This month, long-time, industry respected
CIPP and rehabilitation expert Lynn Osborn
is profiled. Not only has he been active in
NASSCO for many years, but he has served
as key member of numerous industry
associations and groups. He has been
repeatedly recognized for his tireless
efforts to improve and enhance the
rehabilitation industry.

New direction
I graduated with a Master's in Civil
Engineering in 1975 - right when the
Federal Water Pollution Control Act
92-500 was gaining traction. The federal
government was coming through with all
kinds of grants to restore and maintain
the integrity of the nation's wastewater
systems, and I saw this as a great opportunity and now had clear direction on where
to focus my career. I began working for
Wilson & Company, an engineering firm in
Salina, Kans., that had received grants for
wastewater treatment and collection evaluation, repair or replacement. After five
years in the Salina office I was transferred
to the Wichita office, where I worked for
four more years.
I spent a lot of time in the office and
after nine years with Wilson & Company, I
wanted more in terms of field work. Maybe
it was my harvest days that I longed for.
Coincidentally, around that same time, a
friend who was the assistant sewer maintenance director for Wichita called and told
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Underground Construction - March 2020

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