Steve Scott: husband, father, businessman and veteran

Published 2:00 am Sunday, November 8, 2020

When Steve Scott reflects on his life, he has no regrets.

He wouldn’t trade any of his experiences, especially his time in the military and in the Vietnam War.

They made him the man he is today: husband, father, Bend businessman.

“I got confidence,” said Scott. “I grew up. I was excited about what I was doing. We were in the high intensity situations and everyone around me who was on the mission wanted to be there.

“I never questioned why I went.”

Going into the military was also part of his family culture. His father was a U.S. Navy World War II veteran and his brother also joined the Army and served two tours in Vietnam, Scott said.

He joined the Army, Scott said, after his sophomore year at Oregon State University. The year was 1968.

The country was in turmoil. The war was unpopular but he volunteered in the U.S. Army because he felt a sense of duty.

He said he was an unfocused student those first couple of years in college. But the Army sharpened him, honed him to become a Green Beret. He was selected to be part of a highly decorated unit, the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne).

After spending a couple of years training stateside, he was shipped off to Vietnam, recalled the now 72-year-old Scott.

His team organized recon missions, chasing down air force pilots who were shot down in Vietnam. Much of what he did was top secret.

“We participated in a lot of classified stuff,” said the Bend High School graduate. “I was a part of small two or three man team. It was high energy, high anxiety, but exciting.

“I lost a few friends over there. I think about them all the time.”

His experiences led him, upon his return to Oregon, to buckle down, get a degree at the University of Oregon, get married and move back to his hometown of Bend. He worked for other real estate companies before launching his own real estate firm bearing his name.

He also built a storage center on 27th Street with a partner that they still own.

He closed his real estate firm on Third Street in 2014 after being in business for 47 years.

“I formed my own company because of my need to be independent,” Scott said. “I was a little bit of a capitalist. I was a hometown boy who knew a lot of people. I never was a mall or big hotel broker, but I sold lots of buildings to blue collar guys: electricians, plumbers and auto mechanics.

“Those were my high school buddies.”

He and his son operate a private fly fishing ranch called Lake in the Dunes, southeast of Bend. The 480 acres of wildlife habitat, waterfowl and upland game is managed by his son and available for rent, but Scott favors going there for solace.

”We hunt everything,” Scott said. “I do a lot of fly fishing. We don’t do it for financial gain, it’s for ourselves really.”