Right (back) at home

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

Successful careers are supposed to be vertical, not circular.
But Bradley Tate has found a way to defy business physics by moving up the career ladder and yet happily winding up right back where he started.
The Bland County native is back in Southwest Virginia as the branch manager of a new surveying firm in Wytheville, seven years after leaving the area to launch his career in Lynchburg.
“In high school, I thought I wanted to get away and see what’s out there in terms of greener pastures, but I’ve found out that it’s definitely green back home,” Tate said.
Tate, a 1995 Bland High School graduate, spearheaded a drive to get his company, Hurt & Proffitt Inc., to expand its business to the western part of the state by opening up a new branch.
This spring he finally was successful in convincing the company to support his plan and just three months later, in late July, Hurt & Proffitt’s Wytheville office at 350 S. Fourth St. opened its doors for business.
“I wanted to get out of the city life and come back to Wytheville and Bland, close to the families,” said Tate, who is married to Shannan, a 1995 George Wythe High School graduate. “I love the small-town community and being involved in the community.”
Tate and his wife met as students at Emory & Henry College and now have two children, McKenzie, 4, and Mason, almost 2.
The couple both cited a safe environment to raise their kids as part of their eagerness to return to Southwest Virginia.
“We both wanted to live in another town to see what it was like and a bigger city, I guess,” Shannan said. “But then once we were there we kind of realized that we miss the mountains, we miss those friendly people.”
The Tates said that although they didn’t know each other during high school, it was a shared ride back home one weekend during their junior year of college that kick-started their relationship.
“It kind of all started from there with us going back into Wytheville,” Tate said. “Now we’ve been around the circle and coming back again to hopefully live here and retire in this community.”
As they continue to get settled back in the area and look to find a home of their own, the Tates currently are splitting time living with Shannan’s parents, Gary and Judy Crouse, in Wytheville and with Tate’s parents, Hal and Brenda Tate, on their Hill Dairy Inc. farm in Bland.
Even that potentially less-than-ideal temporary arrangement, Tate said, has worked out well so far.
“It is right now, but we’ll give it about two months then we’ll see,” Tate said with a laugh.
The new Wytheville Hurt & Proffitt branch is serving as a satellite office for the company’s Lynchburg surveying department. Eventually, though, Tate said plans call for the office to become the company’s second full-fledged branch (along with an established Norfolk office) away from its Lynchburg headquarters.
The Wytheville office offers a number of services, from construction stakeout and boundary surveys to Global Positioning System and topographical projects.
“We’re capable of doing any kind of survey you need,” Tate said.
He said the company initially began working in the western part of the state through gas line surveying in Tazewell County and continues to work on projects for AEP.
Tate said, though, that in addition to working for big companies, he’s “fired up” to have his office do work for private land owners and farmers, especially in Bland and Wythe counties.
People interested in learning more about Hurt & Proffitt’s services can call the Wytheville office at (276) 228-0008 or visit http://www.handp.com for general information about the company.
After graduating from Emory & Henry in 1999 with a geography bachelor’s degree and from East Tennessee State University in 2001 with his master’s in engineering technology, Tate has steadily moved up the ranks at Hurt & Proffitt.
He started out as a rod man on surveying crews, then did instrument work and served as a party chief, supervising teams from the field.
Eventually he moved into the office as a project manager in Lynchburg before finally getting the opportunity to come back home as the new Wytheville branch manager.
Although his new position requires him to do plenty of office work, from paying the bills to meeting with clients, Tate said he first was attracted to surveying because of its hands-on nature and he said he still enjoys getting outdoors whenever he can.
“What I’ve always said about surveyors, we’re like a jack-of-all-trades because we’ve got to know a lot of courthouse stuff, we’ve got to do research, and then on the other hand we might go in a manhole and get all dirty,” Tate said.
“I’ll have to wear a suit sometimes to court or to meet clients, but then on the other hand I’ll be dressed up covered in mud and have a brush ax in my hand,” he added. “It’s pretty fun. It’s really a neat field and I do something different every day pretty much.”
When he doesn’t get outdoors at work, Tate said he tries to get outside during his free time to kayak, hunt, fish or hike.
Both Tate and Shannan were stellar athletes in high school and played baseball and tennis, respectively, at Emory & Henry.
Shannan said her husband is more into outdoor activities than she is, but she said she relishes that the family can easily go on a hike or picnic together or head over to the Tate farm in Bland and take a raft on Walker’s Creek.
The couple also are working to get reconnected into the life of the local community. In addition to watching their children, Shannan runs a home-based “Just Jewelry” business and the family has been attending Dayspring Fellowship Church.
“God has given Shannan and myself the opportunity to move back to Southwest Virginia, particularly Wythe County and Bland County, in a time when the economy may not be at its best,” Tate said in an e-mail message.
In a news release submitted to the Wytheville-Wythe-Bland Chamber of Commerce, Tate said coming back to the area with his family is nothing short of a dream come true.
“Ever since I went into surveying, it has always been my professional dream to come back to this area to open up a business,” Tate said. “I believe Wytheville is a growing town and I hope to help it continue to grow.”
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .