All posts by Scott Martin
You Make the Call
Even if you aren’t a football fan, or a sports fan in general, you likely still heard something about the very controversial “non-call” of a penalty in the recent NFC championship game between the New Orleans Saints and the Los Angeles Rams. It occurred in the last minutes of the game and very likely cost...
State Plane Coordinates 2022
Ready or not, here they come. Considering all of the outreach that the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) has been doing for the last couple of years, hopefully most of you are well aware of the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS) Modernization Project. That project will result in the replacement of both the North American Datum...
Close Enough for Government Work
Image above: High-tension measurement: Credit NOAA National Geodetic Survey. We have all heard it, most likely have even said it. I have. And we probably meant it as a negative, implying sloppy work. However, researching the origin of the saying revealed that it was born during World War II and meant excellence, as in: if...
Being a Reference for Survey Exam Candidates
Why you should take the opportunity seriously. If you spend time reading almost anything regarding the state of our profession and the growing concerns regarding the viability thereof, you will often see several factors mentioned: the inability to attract young people despite our high-tech, three-dimensional suite of deliverables, the erosion/loss of traditional surveyor tasks, in...
Lost My Rodman
On June 25th, I lost my rodman, who was also my brother, best friend, and only sibling, at the much-too-young age of 57. He went to sleep and didn’t wake up. Turns out he had been ignoring symptoms of heart trouble for some time, and, unfortunately, it was a fatal mistake. My weeks since have...
Surveying Scientists: The USGS Does It Right
As is often the case in our tightly networked profession, one thing leads to another. In early 2017 I was contacted by the US Geological Survey (USGS) hydrologist, Brenda Densmore, from the USGS Nebraska Water Science Center. Brenda had found me through the NGS State Geodetic Coordinator web page and reached out to me for...
