Category Archives: Surveying
Continuing Ed Outside Your Comfort Zone
Learn new skills by taking continuing education seriously. Since its inception in the geomatics arena in the 1990s, the requirement for continuing education (also called continuing competency) has had the aura of a penalty rather than an opportunity. Obtaining legislative approval in many states for the continuing education requirement was difficult. Getting courses approved for...
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...
Geomatics STEM Outreach – NM State Prep Academy
Editor’s note: With all the talk among surveying and geospatial practitioners and the professional associations and societies about outreach, succession planning, and recruitment, it is great to see examples of action from across the country. Here is a great model for other state societies to emulate from New Mexico, courtesy of David Acosta, PS, president...
Surveyors Invited to Join Research Delegation
Land Surveyors and other geospatial professionals are being sought to join a delegation to Switzerland in September of 2018 to research models for cadastral systems. This is the first of an envisioned series of international delegations and exchanges seeking to foster a broader understanding of cadasters and cadastral systems within the surveying community. This is...
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...
A Fine Line
Notes from a visit to the new production facility for Topcon and Sokkia optical surveying instruments. I asked Tsutomu Ishibashi, a production line technician at Topcon’s Yamagata manufacturing facility, what message he would like to convey to the surveyors who use the products he helps produce. His answer was, “We are always trying to improve,...
