The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON-Charles Eaton and his wife, Nancy, are looking into housing availability before they leave their home in the Portland area and he begins work as Columbia County's new public works director on Dec. 3.

Friday will be Eaton's last day as the Engineering Director for the City of Milwaukee, Ore, he said.

The Eatons both agree that living in a small community is preferable to the Portland "rat race."

"This looked like the perfect job for me," said Charles Eaton. "I worked in Amity, Ore. for a little while. The population was 1,700, and I really enjoyed it."

Nancy Eaton said it is a 25-mile commute from their home south of Portland to her job as a Senior CAD Technician with Comtech, in north Portland.

She will probably commute to Walla Walla, if she finds work in her field, and that will be fine with her, she said.

Charles Eaton said he grew up in the Portland area, and graduated from Benson High School before studying civil engineering and public works administration at the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls.

"My specialty is building roads and bridges," said Eaton, whose first job was on a crew building bridges on I-205.

The Eatons both attended the Oregon Institute of Technology, and got married while working for the ODOT, in La Grande.

The Eatons have two sons. James is a senior at Montana State University, studying computer engineering. Will is a freshman at Eastern Washington University, studying mechanical engineering.