When someone dies in Oregon without a will or known family, the Treasury’s Estates Administration program steps in to secure their property, search for heirs, and ensure their assets are protected. It’s investigative work that requires attention to detail and the ability to adapt in unpredictable situations. Greg Goller has been doing this work for nearly 23 years, bringing his military leadership and law enforcement background to one of Treasury’s most interesting programs.

What is your professional background and what brought you to this role?

I served for 20 years in the Army in combat arms and worked my way through different levels of management. After retiring from the military, I spent five years in law enforcement starting with Junction City Police Department in Kansas. After working on patrol there, I moved back to Oregon to be closer to my kids and worked as a sheriff's deputy with Benton County for three years.

I joined the state in 2003 starting at ODOT as a facilities trainer for two and a half years. In 2006, I transitioned to the Department of State Lands where I joined the Trust Property and Estates program. I've been working on estates ever since. When the legislature moved the program from State Lands to Treasury, I came along with it.

What does a typical day look like when you (or your team) are called out to an estate?

Every situation is different; some are straightforward cases while others are unique challenges. Our primary goal is always to find a legal instrument like a will or trust. If there is no will or trust, we work to locate next of kin using information from letters, addresses, and other documents at the property.

When we receive a report of a deceased person, we do a cursory search of our databases to try to find next of kin. If we can't locate relatives through our databases, we move to the next phase: making a site visit. During these visits, we're essentially conducting investigations. We document everything, secure the property, and gather information that might lead us to heirs or a will.

The estate team deals with all kinds of property – houses, safe deposit boxes, personal items. What’s been the most unusual or unexpected thing you’ve handled from an estate?

When we arrived at a property in Coos Bay, we found a 67-acre farm with over 60 heads of cattle scattered everywhere. Cows were up in the woods, the bushes, the barn; they were just everywhere. These animals were starving, and they were breaking through fences to get out on the road. County animal control was getting ready to come in with cattle trucks and haul them all to auction, but we had to intervene because the cattle were assets of the estate.

We rounded them up as best as we could. I reached out to someone I had known from previous estate cases who owned cows, and he brought over five 500-pound hay bales on a flatbed the next day. The cows went nuts for it. The whole herd came running at us as soon as they saw that flatbed coming in

Not long after, we were able to get arrangements made for an auctioneer and they were sold. But that was not the end of the story on this property.

The deceased had owned multiple properties, including a house in Coos Bay. There was a couple that tried to claim they had been promised the farm and brought a fake will to try to prove it. Co-conspirators were passing bad checks against several of his accounts and rented out his house in Coos Bay. Multiple vehicles and equipment went missing, which were later recovered by law enforcement when I reported they were stolen.

It took several weeks to get the properties in order with help from the fraud department and multiple law enforcement agencies, who knew this cast of characters.

What’s something about your role that would surprise most people?

The investigative nature appeals to me. You're piecing together someone's life from documents, tracking down relatives, securing property, and dealing with everything from legal instruments to livestock. After nearly 23 years in this program, I can say that no two estates are the same, and you never know what you're walking into when you get that initial report.