County deputy moonlights as an umpire

 Casey, 52, has umpired even bigger games, including the 2014 and 2017 WBSC Men’s World Championships, both played out in Canada’s Yukon Territory, in the city of Whitehorse.

 What became a second career started off as a side job.

 He was living in southern California with wife, Jennifer, over two decades ago after graduating from DeVry Institute of Technology in Phoenix, Ariz. with a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering.

 Despite nailing a job at Sun Microsystems, they were just starting out and needed a bit more revenue coming in.

 “I needed some extra income, so I started umpiring,” said Casey, who had played a number of sports growing up, including baseball until he was 15-years-old. “I started doing that so I could pay bills and then I kind of fell in love with the sport of softball and started doing bigger and better games, bigger and better tournaments until, finally, I’m here.”

 Waite now serves as an Elite Status Umpire under U.S.A. Softball, the governing body for United States national softball teams. 

 The organization is a member of the WBSC, which consists of 2 million players, 230,000 teams, and 30,000 umpires.

 Becoming an umpire of Casey’s rank is a long process.

 “First, you have to achieve a certain rating through the U.S.A. Softball organization, which is called an Elite Status Umpire,” he explained. “You have to go through and do certain high-level tournaments and get rated on that through U.S.A. Softball. Once you get that status, you can apply to go through an international certification school.”

 He has been internationally certified since 2011. 

 The tournament in Columbia was Casey’s first trip to South America, which was paid for by U.S.A. Softball.

 “I’ve never been there and it was a very interesting experience,” he said. “I mean, the culture and the lifestyle is a completely different experience than it is here. It’s a lot more relaxed, a lot less formal, I’d say.”

 It’s almost as contrasting as southern California is in relation to Weiser, Idaho, Casey leaving Sun Microsystems not even two years after taking the job.

 “I was born in La Grande, Oregon,” Casey explained. “I got my first job down in California and my wife and I survived 22 months there before we had to leave and moved to Idaho.”

 He landed a job at Micron Technology, Inc. in Boise, working for the company for the next 19 years before being laid off about four years ago.

 By then, he and his now flourishing family made the move to Weiser, Casey commuting back and forth to Boise every day for two years, putting over 40,000 miles on his car in a single year.

 “Rather than try to find a job and move somewhere else, I decided to retire from engineering and saw that the county was hiring,” he said. “My mom had been a jail deputy for 26 years and I thought if my mom can do it, maybe I could too. So, I came down and talked to them, got an interview, and they hired me.”

 Casey has been working as a detention deputy at the Washington County Sheriff’s Office now for four years and said that he loves living in Weiser.

 “My wife and I both grew up in eastern Oregon, in small communities, and we love that atmosphere,” he said.

 As for making the change from an engineer to a detention deputy, he said it was quite a change, but one he is happy with.

 “It’s actually quite an enjoyable position,” he said. “It’s probably a lot different than I was expecting, but I really enjoy it. I think it’s an opportunity to interact and help people, make sure they are getting the care they need in the facility here – and we have openings.”