All posts by Nancy Luse
Mini Map-Makers
Cartographer “Captain Alice” teaches children to read and use maps as a communication tool. Alice Gadney believes her cartography business, Silver7 Mapping, is designed “to help people understand the world around them and their need for a great communications tool—the map.” And when she says “people,” she’s also including youngsters, starting with her five-year-old son,...
A Historic Survey Baseline
After more than 100 years of largely being ignored by the general public, the meridian stones in front of city hall in Frederick, Maryland, were ready for their close-up. Meridian Stones Video The stones, six-inch-tall pillars that stand 150.76 feet apart in a true north/south alignment, are familiar to local surveyors but not to the...
Surveying in the Land of Penguins
The term one-man crew takes on new meaning in Antarctica. In 1841, a U.S. expedition mapped a portion of Antarctica, proving that it was a continent. Generations later, surveyors such as Corey Biddle continue to map and survey the area with the latest equipment. But sometimes the rough conditions in this frozen land–where GPS antenna...
Busness Leader: SURV-KAP Celebrates More than 40 Years
W.C. Croft owned and ran several businesses in his lifetime, from an industrial pump company to an enterprise that provided the lights for the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. But the one with a special place in his heart was SURV-KAP LLC, based in Tucson, Arizona, producing monuments and other products for surveyors.As the firm recently...
Back to Mount McKinley
Climbers locate a special, 25-year-old monument feared lost; it still marks the peak of North America’s tallest mountain. Rhonda Rushing, president of Berntsen International, Inc., regularly hears from people who have spotted her company’s survey monuments, usually in places like the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in North Carolina or at Disney World. The monument erected at...
Keeping the Dream Alive
Above: Valley Air Photo’s full lineup: the single-engine Beechcraft V35 Bonanza is their main film aircraft; the twin-engine Cessna 320s are capable of carrying both film and digital cameras but are mainly used in digital acquisition. At its 30-year anniversary, a small aerial photography business recounts changes in the industry and in itself. Thirty years...
