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The new shoes that Ken Stoneman walks in fit him fine.
After 30 years with the Oregon Department of Transportation, he shed his public employee footgear and tried the private sector on for size.
He retired at the end of May from ODOT, where for the last eight years he served as state construction and materials engineer, with eight departments and 130 employees reporting to him.
The following week, he showed up at the Salem offices of David Evans and Associates Inc. to head its construction engineering group.
Coming to work that Monday morning, I just went to a different address. That's all, said the 52-year-old Stoneman.
The Pendleton native had worked for ODOT his entire adult life, starting out working summer vacations from college on survey crews.
Those were the years of large freeway construction work, he said. It looked like a good place to go work.
After earning his civil engineering degree from the Oregon Institute of Technology in 1973, he did just that. He joined ODOT, starting out as crew leader and construction inspector.
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