Lee Jorgen Nelson

Lee was raised in Junction City, Oregon, and worked for his grandfather at Parkland Dairy on Strome Lane. He was high school student body president, attended Oregon State University where he majored in forestry, in class of 1938. His family moved to Florence, Oregon, shortly after his high school yers and he earned money for college by delivering newspapers by car from Florence to Cheshire. He also palyed semi-pro baseball, traveling and competing against local teams. He workded for the Soil Conservation Service in Eastern Oregon until 1941, building rock barriers to avoid soil erosion in the Stanfield and Condon areas. He married Winifred in 1940 and lived in Hermiston and then Garibaldi shortly thereafter. They moved to Bremerton in 1941 where he worked as a naval architect and engineer repairing and updating ships in the naval yard. Following the war he was co-owner of a sawmill, Nelson Lumber Company, with his father for four years. They moved to Coos Bay in 1949, where he became manager of Coast Pacific Lumber Company. Later he was general manager for Al Pierce Lumber Company, with operations in North Bend, Millington, Myrtle Point, and Eureka, California. He served on the Oregon State Board of Forestry from 1964 to 1967, and served two terms as president of Timber Operators Council. After retirement from the lumber industry he became a commercial real estate appraiser and worked for Coos County until 1985. They moved to Summerfield in Tigard, Oregon, in 1985.