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Survey CAD tech requirements.
In my area (SE VA), there is no shortage of design draftsmen due to the NN and Norfolk shipyards, but there are very few Land Survey / Civil drafters.
How do you all find your draftspeople?
To me drafting a plat is a very specific skillset that may only be glanced over in a CAD class concerned with preparing someone for the shipyards. The small firms I worked for promoted from within- from field to plat drafting. That would be my preferred method, but I am struggling to find the “motivated” personnel.
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13 Replies
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Motivate them more? $$$
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Every Survey CAD tech I’ve ever known, save perhaps 1 or 2, started out on the field crew and more or less taught themselves office skills out of necessity. This includes myself.
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Every Survey CAD tech I’ve ever known, save perhaps 1 or 2, started out on the field crew and more or less taught themselves office skills out of necessity. This includes myself.
same here. R12 with a digitizer, usually with a beer in hand, after a full day of shooting residential titles. helped that my boss lived next door and we built the office on the back of his house.
but to the original question: i wish i knew. because 1. that’s exactly the person i could and would hire right now 2. exactly the person who, in my opinion, needs the most training and is- conversely- probably the most resistant to it (“but i have an certificate in CAD, i already know this…”) and 3. at least around here of late, can absolutely name their price.
cad techs here are getting more an hour than i did when i shopped jobs immediately after getting my license in 2006. which… i get it- time goes by, but they’re getting PAID, and nary any of them know the first thing about surveying.
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I’ve never had to do it but if I did I would probably get a disenchanted aerospace drafter from the Lazy B. I would find a CAD drawing of what I want, an old plat that was hand drawn that I admire, and a piece of sh*t drawing that came out of Brand X and perhaps a few other gems. Put them in front of the applicant and ask them which they like the best. If they choose wisely, mentor-mentor-mentor and mentor again. Oh and keep cold beer in the fridge and go golfing every now and then. Those are perks that are overlooked by management.
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I agree.
A draftsman can follow a pattern, model and/or example of a product and put that into whatever the new drawing is.
My present final product is much the same look as I first made by hand in pencil as instructed in high school drafting class and especially by Mr Betts with ink well pen in college.
0.02
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I’ve tried with $$$. Face still stays glued to the phone and distracted by the girlfriend / facebook, youtube, etc.
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Survey drafting isn’t really taught anywhere that I know of. You can either teach a drafter how to survey, or teach a surveyor how to draft.
I started out with GIS and CAD, and learned surveying afterwards. I got lucky in that I had some excellent mentors who were able to explain not just survey practice, but why the lines were shown and labeled a certain way.
The key is having a good teacher/mentor and someone willing to make use of it.
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There is a one year certificate program at Civil Engineering Columbus State Community College, Columbus, Ohio that has prepared many survey/civil technicians for both field and office positions. Check the course descriptions at https://catalog.cscc.edu/programs/Surveying%20Certificate to see what you think. Before I retired in 2012 we guided students to complete content now in the first three of the following courses and prepare a resume:
- SURV1410 – Introduction to Surveying
- ARCH1120 – Architectural CAD I
- SURV1460 – Computer Apps in Construction Science
- SURV2410 – Engineering Surveying
- CIVL2430 – Roadway Location & Design
As you might expect there are math prerequisites for some of these courses. The first two courses provide the basics for a survey field crew member or CAD drafter. The third is general data handling useful in a survey/civil office.
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We see a similar program at AB Tech in Asheville down here. The Surveying student gets two cad curses where they see both Carlson and Civil 3D. It’s best if the student sees a full Surveying program, with a smattering of Engineering Tech courses that apply to surveying (a licensee in NC is responsible for being able to handle hydrology, culvert and storm sewer hydraulics, and erosion control, as one example).
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In NC, the associate programs in Surveying Technology (who have now adopted the nothing title “Geomatics”) teach the entire gamut of the profession as needed in a local survey office, including CADD. At AB Tech in Asheville, they will see Carlson and Civil 3D. Carlson dominates in the Survey world in this region. The Engineering firms will use Civil 3D, including the Surveyors. A few use Microstation, but those firms also have a lot of NCDOT work and NCDOT requires the use of Microstation and Geopak.
The major source of licensees in NC are the AA programs. There is a BS program at A&T, but the number of grads is small and if the University system sees any financial strain, the program is highly likely to die. Some GIS programs teach some surveying, but surveying and GIS are not compatible fields, but NC has a GIS Land Surveyor license, a rather stupid addition that simply allowed the board to extend its tentacles outside of its actual portfolio.
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I had a few drafting classes built into the geomatics program I went through but it’s not possible to teach a beast like Civil 3D in a year.
The challenging part doesn’t seem to be the drafting anyway, it’s having the PLS shred your drawing 50 times for aesthetic reasons.
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Wow, I stand corrected! I wish I had known about these programs 7 years ago!
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