Mr. Ted Short
Vice President, Rails to Trails Wayne County

We received a letter of commendation from Mr. Ted Short, Vice President of Rails to Trails Wayne County that was addressed to Keith Amstutz, in which he stated:

“President Don Noble and I want to express our sincere appreciation for the highly professional work of you and your Shaffer Pomeroy, Ltd. associates in planning, surveying, and designing a new seven mile long County Line Trail between Creston and Rittman. This former rail-bed and general right-of-way has been fraught with complex design issues around and through both public and private land holdings as well as two highly active CSX rail-crossings. You have skillfully done each trail segment in great detail to both meet ODOT requirements and to minimize the number of necessary property acquisitions.

We have been especially pleased with your willingness and ability to communicate complex design details to Wayne County planners, our board, our members at the annual meeting, and private owners of the planned right-of-way. This communication effort should greatly increase our chances of achieving closure on seven private property acquisitions. And, together we are working with one very large railroad company (CSX) at three levels of management (local, regional, and national) with an expectation of an acceptable agreement for both CSX and Wayne County Rails to Trails. We especially look forward to success on that one!

Being a retired licensed professional engineer and engineering educator, I have found the quality of your design work outstanding. We especially have appreciated your willingness to listen to our ideas during the design stages and either incorporate those same ideas into your design or give good reasons for making no changes. You and your associates have surely been one of the highlights of our efforts over the last year in developing the new County Line Trail.

Many thanks again for your exemplary design work as well as consistent project management for environmental review and property appraisals for acquisition. We look forward to a successful completion in the near future.”

A copy of this signed letter is available upon request.