January 22, 2006: Headlines: COS - Thailand: Engineering: Chicago Daily Herald: Thailand RPCV David Burroughs has used his work skills to volunteer for a variety of causes, from building dams in rural Thailand to helping design the Elburn Town and Country Library
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January 22, 2006: Headlines: COS - Thailand: Engineering: Chicago Daily Herald: Thailand RPCV David Burroughs has used his work skills to volunteer for a variety of causes, from building dams in rural Thailand to helping design the Elburn Town and Country Library
Thailand RPCV David Burroughs has used his work skills to volunteer for a variety of causes, from building dams in rural Thailand to helping design the Elburn Town and Country Library
"You really owe it to society to share and give back of your talents," he said. "It's not enough to be successful, to be able to make your house payments."
Thailand RPCV David Burroughs has used his work skills to volunteer for a variety of causes, from building dams in rural Thailand to helping design the Elburn Town and Country Library
Village engineer also a volunteer
Jan 22, 2006 - Chicago Daily Herald
David Burroughs always has been one to lend a helping hand. Or, in his case, a blueprint.
Sugar Grove's village engineer has used his work skills to volunteer for a variety of causes, from building dams in rural Thailand to helping design the Elburn Town and Country Library.
"You really owe it to society to share and give back of your talents," he said. "It's not enough to be successful, to be able to make your house payments."
Burroughs, 46, grew up in East Dubuque, just across the Mississippi River from Iowa, and received his civil engineering degree at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.
After graduating and working for the Illinois Department of Transportation for a year and a half, he said he decided "there was too much certainty in my life," and joined the Peace Corps in the early 1980s.
For two years, he worked in rural villages in Thailand, working with local officials on road projects, wells and other infrastructure needs.
After about six months he had learned to speak Thai and gotten used to local customs.
"It was nice going to a place that you have no expectations of," he said. "Everything they told me I just took for granted."
After that he began working with the International Rescue Committee maintaining public facilities for Cambodians displaced by upheaval between the governmental overthrow by the Khmer Rouge and an advancing Vietnamese army.
He helped work on roads and sewage treatment facilities for refugee camps in Thailand that each were home to as many as 40,000 Cambodians.
It was working there that Burroughs met his future wife. He traveled with her to her native Philippines to get married, and they lived there for another year and a half.
After the birth of their first son, the couple decided to move to the United States in 1987.
After being out of the country for five years, he agreed with his Peace Corps training that re-adjusting to American life was harder than adjusting to a new culture.
"You never realize it, but things here change so quickly," he said. "It's like night and day. I came back and everyone was using ATM machines, and I had to get used to that."
The family moved to Elburn in the early 1990s, and Burroughs started working at Engineering Enterprises Inc. in Sugar Grove. In the years since he's become vice president and part owner of the company.
Several years later he heard about Town and Country's need for a new library and helped in the planning for the new building on North Street.
He's also seen eight failed attempts for a tax increase to fund operations.
Pushing for the same thing - Burroughs notes the library hasn't had an increase in its tax rate since 1943 - over and over again does get frustrating, he said.
"But we don't have a lot of choices," he said. "We've cut hours, purchases, programming. We really need this to restore those things."
Besides being the president of the library's board of trustees, he is a member of the Elburn Lions Club, has helped organize the Sugar Grove Corn Boil and is on several committees at St. Gall Parish in Elburn.
When this story was posted in February 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: Chicago Daily Herald
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Thailand; Engineering
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