Frederick Bruce Underhill (1947 - 2019)
Bruce Underhill was born in Vancouver. He attended elementary and high school in the Kerrisdale neighbourhood and then attended UBC and BCIT. In 1975, he received his British Columbia Land Survey Commission and joined Underhill and Underhill Surveying partnership, a company started by his father and uncle. He received his Dominion Land Surveyor Commission in 1978. Through the 1970s and in the mid-1980s, Bruce travelled and worked in British Columbia and the Yukon. He and Dawn married in 1972 and they relocated their young family to Whitehorse in 1984. He managed the Whitehorse Underhill and Underhill office from 1986 to 2008.1)
Bruce sat on the Association of Canada Land Surveyors starting in 1984 and in the 1990s was the national president. He mentored many currently practicing Canada land surveyors practicing in the Yukon. After his retirement in 2008, Bruce served as executive director of Engineers Yukon who shared resources from an adjoining office. He worked to chronicle the history of Yukon engineering and supported the youth bridge building competition. He volunteered with the City of Whitehorse Board of Variance, the Boy Scouts, the Yukon science fair, and on school councils. He sat for decades on the Yukon Surface Rights Board.2)
In 2018, Bruce Underhill received the Tim Keopke Award of Merit for his contribution to the future of surveying and advancing excellence in the profession.3)