Member Highlight – Abstractor: Chad Evans
Chad Evans, a Mississippi native who attended Belhaven College, found his way to abstracting as a career by chance in the way so many abstractors do. In 2007, his then-girlfriend Courtney, now his wife, was working for Mississippi Title and Appraisal and recommended him to her manager. Chad received one month of training and was sent “out to the wild” of Jefferson County for his first solo title search. He quickly picked up more and more counties and, a few years later, jumped on an opening for an abstractor position with First American Title Insurance Company covering Hinds and Rankin Counties. Today, Chad is First American’s Title Operations Manager, which is quite an accomplishment for someone who knew nothing about real estate titles only 15 years ago.
During his many years in the courthouse, Chad has found deeds prepared by individuals to be quite entertaining and says, “There is something about seeing a Quick-claim Deed that can turn a bad day around.” One of the strangest things he has discovered in a title search was a deed that described a secret tunnel underneath Pascagoula Street in downtown Jackson connecting the Clarion-Ledger building to a former warehouse on the south side of the street. He says, “Honestly, I have no idea if it exists; maybe a member here knows about it and can fill me in on the details.”
Chad and Courtney have a son, Waylon, who is 5 years old, and his parents still live in Mississippi. Away from work, he enjoys working in the yard, tinkering in his shop, turkey hunting, watching movies with his family, and playing video games with his son. A self-described “weather fanatic,” Chad once filmed a tornado as it formed in the clouds, touched down, and headed straight toward his house. Fortunately, the tornado took a last-minute turn and passed 300 yards away. “It was elegant yet destructive,” he recalls. “My wife yelled at me a lot that evening, but it was SOOO worth it.”
Looking forward to the annual LTAMS conference, Chad encourages other abstractors to attend and take advantage of the opportunity to network with other members and catch up on educational updates. “This year we get to go to the casino . . . which will give us a little playtime,” he says, “and we could all use a little bit of playtime given how rough 2021 was for us all.”