The following is taken from a link Paul in PA provided in a post now far below. I'm not totally comfortable with some of what it tells me about surveying in Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania Association of Professional Land Surveyors (PA-PLS) is a Limited Liability Company (LLC) PA Dept of State Entity Number #4025257 created June 14, 2010. The membership requirement is to be an Active or Retired Pennsylvania Professional Land Surveyor (PLS) in good standing. Surveyors in Training (SIT) are welcome. PLS applicants must be able to conduct all communications by e-mail.
Mission:
Our mission is to provide:
•To provide Continuing Education to its Members and a limited number of (non-member) PE guests (to fill seats)
•Broadcast information to PA-PLS Members of governmental, technical and business related matters.
•Collectively speak to government agencies of matters of concern to the Members.
•Provide a web oriented method of communication between the Registrar, Coordinators and Members.
•Provide a source of continuously increasing number of Technical and Business related web links.
Chapters:
Seminars are currently held at the following locations: Lehigh Valley (Center Valley), Delaware County (Media), Berks County (Reading), Black Rock (Schuylkill Haven), Lower Susquehanna Valley (York), Dubois Area (DuBois) and Noreasters (Scranton).
More to follow…
Cost:
Annual Membership ………..………………………………Free For Life
There is no annual cost for members.
All costs are covered by seminar fees.
Typical Seminar fees are 4PDH = $50, 6PDH = $60
or as adjusted by the Cost of Living index
Join PA-PLS »
Note: Civil Engineering PE's can sign up to be on our mailing list for seminar info.
My thoughts:
1) Why would you intentionally exclude from membership licensed land surveyors from other States? I believe a number of States have Associate Member or some such category for members who are not currently licensed in the home state. Why intentionally exclude those licensed to do engineering-related surveying?
2) The requirement for membership that you MUST have e-mail is new and revolting to me. Do I also HAVE TO have a telephone and a fax machine?
3. Why exclude virtually everyone you can think of from attending the educational programs? I have frequently had my non-licensed co-workers attend such programs so that they can become better at what they do. The added comment (to fill seats) is a bit derogatory, don't you think?
4. The ending statement relative to Civil Engineering PE's is too narrow minded. There are other engineering degrees besides Civil which perform surveying services in most States. Those people should not be sent to the XXXXX-Only Drinking Fountain.
FWI: PA-PLS is an group recently formed by surveyors unhappy with the policies of the Pennsylvania Society of Land Surveyors which has been in existence since 1969.
I'll Try To Respond
I know the founder and was an early member. I was a member of PSLS and we were more than unhappy with PSLS policies, but were also unhappy with the dues. PSLS got into a very high overhead cost by contracting with a professional management company. That high overhead was reflected in dues, annual convention and CEU costs. Some think the requirement for PA surveyors to maintain CEUs was pushed by PSLS for it's own benefit as convention attendance dwindled.
1/ PA-PLS was formed to meet the needs of PA PLSes in obtaining CEUs. Being a "PA PLS" is a statement which may have been necessary in the goal creation documents of PA-PLS to limit it's overhead. I believe an LLC must be limited in scope.
Originally only PLSes were addressed, SITs were not included, which I am glad to see has changed. When there is no fixed membership fee there is no need for Associate Membership. There is no intent to address the needs of PLSes from other states or of those only doing engineering-related surveys. (BTW the founder is a PLS and PE.)ive
2/ In order to reduce overhead costs "no snail mail" is an inherent part of PA-PLS. So you in fact could be a member of PA-PLS, but to what purpose? You would never receive notice of events. You do mail registration and a check for events. I receive 1 to 2 emails a week, new seminars, reminders and changes. It is uneccessary to have a telephone or fax since no one is delegated to contact you that way.
3/ No effort is made for a global invite, so if that is exclusion so be it. "To fill seats" is not derogatory, it is more or less a neccessity. A seminar costs pretty much the same for 1 or 50, most are generally full, but filling in seats is a good idea.
4/ Again the goal is to serve PA PLSes. CEs do have some overlap, but again their specific needs are not addressed. Other engineers are not excluded but no effort is expended in their direction.
PA-PLS is funded by setting aside $10 per attendee to cover the basic costs of the web site, and front money for upcoming seminars.
Paul in PA
I think you are over-reacting here. First off, this is probably a "splinter" organization, a group that may be unhappy with the older, more established PSLS. They must think they have a better way to do things. We had the same situation in NJ, where a smaller group went out and formed their own organization, and offered monthly meeting with CEU courses as an alternative to the yearly conference sponsored by the NJSPLS. They saw the older NJSPLS as being too complacent in the formulation and enforcement of the CEU program at it's beginning, and so formed their own group. If the pattern is the same, they are just starting out, are less organized, underfunded, and haven't quite thought everything through yet, hence some of the "gaffes" you are questioning.
Give them credit....they stated their "mission" right up front: "To provide Continuing Education to its Members..." They are PA focused, which may be part of their dissatisfaction with the older Association.
"Broadcast information to PA-PLS Members..." and "Provide a web oriented method of communication....", "Provide a source of continuously increasing number of Technical and Business related web links...." Obviously, they don't want to be involved in mailings, postal fees etc., so they intend to do all their business via the Internet. This is probably a great money saver, and frankly, in this day and age I'm thinking if a surveyor doesn't have Internet capabilites of some sort, what other technical resources may he lack? Think about it....I don't know about others here, but I find myself increasingly unable to participate in many things because they are tied to "Facebook" or "Twiiter", neither of which I belong to or engage in. Technology is changing the way we interact, and this is just another indicator of the future.
As to excluding others, when's the last time a land surveyor got invited to the AMA conference? They seem to have a pretty specific focus, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. As for the civil engineers thing, well, I'm guessing they just aren't worried about the electrical engineers, or mechanical engineers needing surveying CEU's.
Finally, they are offering their "membership" for no annual fee, just sign on and you can attend the courses.....I think that's pretty resonable, and so are the fees.
If they can get approval for their programs, I say more power to them.
EDIT: Paul posted while I was writing my post, and he is closer to and much more knowledgable about the situation, but I think you can see where they're coming from.
More power to them!
Yes, it sounds like a surveyors collective to acquire CEUs at a reasonable cost but also to have the ability to be proactive by a grassroot cooperative association in state and local survey issues using the internet.
I have come to believr that the best ceu/pdh presenters are located in your own state. The exception are the folks at NGS who do VG and informative presentations. Their is a wealth of wisdom in your state that should be discovered.
I would rather listen to a bunch of local surveyrs here than hear these out of state travelling show power point presenters and all their phooey.
I Agree
The first seminar I attended was Dave Doyle, for $50.
Who can beat that?
Paul in PA
More power to them!
> I have come to believe that the best ceu/pdh presenters are located in your own state. The exception are the folks at NGS who do VG and informative presentations. Their is a wealth of wisdom in your state that should be discovered.
> I would rather listen to a bunch of local surveyors here than hear these out of state traveling show power point presenters and all their phooey.
A local surveyor that I know attended the West Virginia conference last year. The way he tells it, he was in an ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey seminar and toward the end of the session the class had some questions that they didn't feel the presenter (I don't know who it was) was answering to their satisfaction. Someone asked the presenter how much experience he had in ALTA surveys, and the answer was: "well...I don't really do them in my practice"
More power to them!
yeah, I would think that a ALTA seminar would be that the presenter power points the neew requirements and then flips though readding the requirements to the audience ad nauseum and then entertains a few questions here and there if the audience is still awake in one of those large halls at a hotel filled with table and chairs which make it a very formal setting to learn anything new.
I Agree
I haven't found one.
The least I can get is $100 for do at home and mail it in.
More power to them!
I actually attended that seminar. I do a fair number of ALTA/NSPS surveys during the year, and I have to say that the presenter was impressive in his knowledge of the new standards.
I was surprised at the end when he said that he had never done an ALTA survey; however I was impressed by his honesty and I have to say that I still learned some things and in my opinion his lack of experience in performing ALTA surveys did not diminish the quality of the seminar.