When David Hopkins, Jr., was a child, he was, in his words, “a sickly little cuss.” Although he longed to play outside, bronchial asthma forced him to spend his early years indoors. To get through the long days, he told himself if he ever got healthy he’d spend all of his time outside.
Hopkins’ health did improve, and although he hasn’t been able to spend every moment of his adulthood in the great outdoors, he’s done his best. His more than 50-year career as a land surveyor has helped. “I can come in early and get some things done in the office, but when the sun gets up and the crew gets out, I get an aching to get outside,” he says.
Hopkins is a partner at Hopkins Surveying Group in Chattanooga, the current version of the company he helped to form in 1960. He’s also the owner of a steady stream of low-key wisecracks. When asked about how compelling his desire to be outdoors is, he replies, “I’d rather be outside than in here with you,” and then chuckles quietly.
Hopkins Surveying Group consists of three surveyors collectively registered in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. One of the surveyors is his daughter, Tracy Hopkins-Tindall, who’s also a partner. One day, as Tracy and her father were discussing who was in charge, she said, “Dad, we can’t have two bosses.” He said, “Fine, then you’re the boss.”
Although Hopkins is registered in Tennessee, he stopped doing jobs at 68. “You get a work out. I remember climbing the side of Lookout Mountain and thinking, ‘Why am I doing this?’ Once I got home and quit sweating, I’d be ready to get back out there,” he says.
Hopkins still runs errands for the company, sets up jobs, and acts as the resident fireman when someone comes in with a bone to pick. “Surveying is not fun and games. You do a job, and 10 years later, someone will say you did it wrong. Other surveyors will disagree with you and take you to court. But I never let any of that bother me,” he says. Hopkins does come across as laid-back. He speaks gently, and never seems to be in a hurry to say anything. When he gets rolling on a story, though, he likes to provide a thorough account. The marriage of his easygoing nature and his proclivity for attention to detail made him a good fit for survey work, which requires hours of meticulous labor.
Hopkins started down the path that would lead him to his career in high school, when he took summer jobs with geological survey teams. He liked being outside, and eventually started doing survey work. Hopkins studied industrial management at the University of Chattanooga at Tennessee, however, and then went to work for a paper company. Although the plant soon closed, Hopkins says his time there proved valuable.
“I couldn’t work for someone today, but when I was young, I needed the discipline,” he says.
Times were hard, so Hopkins talked with a man in the survey business, and secured work. Later, he helped to form George A. Morton and Associates. In 1965, the company became Hopkins-Morton Engineering. When Morton, an engineer, passed away in 1990, Hopkins changed the name of the company again to identify it as a survey business. Since then, Hopkins Survey Group has concentrated on commercial work, which has served the company well as the housing market has struggled.
“We do very few subdivisions. I have competitors in town that do more subdivisions than I do, and that’s fine. We do commercial, commercial, commercial,” he says. The sheer span of time during which Hopkins has been a surveyor makes him a good person to corner into a conversation. Especially interesting is the mini-museum of old land survey tools that dress up the entrance to his company on Hamm Road near downtown Chattanooga. Hopkins enjoys showing off the collection, some of which dates back to the ’60s, and talking about how technology has changed his line of work.
“We don’t do things like we did when I started. In 1960, we pulled a 100-foot measuring tape called a chain. And we used an instrument that allowed us to turn the angle, site the distance, and then measure the distance. Today, we work with GPS,” he says.
Hopkins takes two pens representing points on a piece of property and demonstrates how the new system works. He also marvels at how modern equipment automatically records data on a computer chip. “We might take 600 shots in one day. In the past, we put everything in our field books, but now, we can download the data to our computer,” he says. While most people assume previous generations prefer the old way of doing things, Hopkins appreciates both.
“I liked what we did in the ’60s because it was physical. We pulled chain. We cut brush. We walked. But I also like the new way because it cuts down on personnel, and we can do more work,” he says. Throughout his career, Hopkins has contributed his time and skills to a variety of professional organizations. He’s a member of the American Congress of Surveying and Mapping, was the president of the Tennessee Association of Professional Surveyors from 1978-1979, served on the Tennessee Board of Examiners from 1979-1985, and did a stint with the National Council for Examiners for Engineering and Surveying from 1980-1982. While with the National Council, he developed the matrix for the national land surveyors test.
Hopkins has also served as an expert witness in cases as recent as 2010. He did take a break from the survey business to allow his daughter to develop the company, but he didn’t stop working. Instead, he became the executive director of what’s now know as The Chattanooga Arboretum and Nature Center, a nonprofit arboretum, botanical garden, and historical site located at the western base of Lookout Mountain. Hopkins was also a commercial hot air balloon pilot for 17 years beginning in 1982.
When asked what else he’s done, he laughs and says, “Ain’t that enough?” It’s more than enough, although a mere catalog of the things Hopkins has done fails to underscore what could be his most important accomplishment. Statistics suggest the average time most workers today spend at one job is 4.4 years, yet Hopkins has been doing one thing for over 50 years. For this reason, some people today might consider him to be a relic, like the decades-old equipment on display at his company.
But Hopkins adapted well and has remained competitive. He’s also shown what a person can accomplish when he or she is committed to a single career or company. As he looks over the objects in his display case, his daughter is down the hall, working. He’s built and maintained something he can pass on to her and his son. Even better, he was able to achieve that end while doing the one thing he wanted to do more than anything else – be outside.