How did you get started surveying?

Rodman needed 555-6706.

That was all the ad said. He said he would train and to be at his house at 10 til 6 the next morning. That was 1989 and I still wake up at 4:30 every day.

Started surveying in 1996 a few years after my father started out on his own. Has been great fun and grey hairs ever since.

Two of my uncles are surveyors. When I was young, one of them gave me an arrowhead he had found. I heard a lot of stories about finding pottery shards, arrowheads, fossils, and numerous other things (and some other stuff about stones, pins, and measuring things...). In third grade we had some journal that we wrote in daily or weekly or something. I found it several years ago, and one entry was a response to "What do you want to be when you grow up?" My reply was something along the lines of "I want to be a surveyor. My uncles find neat stuff when they're out working."
During my junior year of high school (1999), we had a Career Day, during which I spent the day with a survey crew in town. At the end of the day the owner of the business asked if I had a summer job lined up, and if I'd like to spend my summer there. That just cemented things even more. I spent the next three summers chaining and rodding there, in between going to college and obtaining my AS in surveying. Now fifteen years after that first summer, I'm still at the same company, and still enjoying what I do every day.
One funny thing I discovered while performing some genealogical research is that I had a great-great grandfather and possibly a great-great-great grandfather who were surveyors. I guess it's in my blood!

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away I was a young glaciologist on a NSF expedition to the frozen Juneau Ice Fields. It seems that the leader of our merry band figured that I, as strapping lad of 1.9 meters, would be the perfect candidate to add the bulk of a Wild T-2 to his already loaded pack. Thus I spent the summer skiing across the glaciers of SE Alaska digging 4m deep pits in the glacial snow and surveying to determine the patterns of movement of the advancing ice. My instructors in surveying were two of the all-time greats. One, Charles Swithinbank, got is start as a surveyor in Greenland and Antarctica in the 1940's. The other, Klaus Blachngtzky, was a pioneer in the field of photogrammetry prior to WWII. Klaus had been drafted into the German Luftwaffe during the war and spent all but the last few months flying over the eastern front before luckily being transferred to an airbase outside of München where he immediately surrendered his jet fighter base to advancing US forces. These guys were great and are the reason I spent the next year and a half taking all of the survey coursed I could fit into the last of my academic career. By the time I finished up I was able to sit for the LIST. Since jobs for glaciology/geomorphology/cartography (I spent some extra time at school) quite scares I hired on with an engineering firm as a survey tech and the rest is history. And given the state of glaciers today, I think I made the correct decisions.

> My Dad actually tried to discourage me (at least that is how I remember it for this story) when I was 12. That is pretty good reverse psycology on a teenager now that I think of it. Mom finally wore him down and I still remeber him showing me how to use that plumb bob in front of our house on Herriott Street.

I did not characterize my Dad fairly here. I am just not very good with very many words.

Sorry Pop.

My cousin was 1st year at Uni in it and my Mum wanted me out of the house.

Dad was a builder and I had helped him with some levelling for form work as a Teen. I was always good at Math and Graphics but I honestly was like most teens and didn't really have and drive, goal or enthusiasm.

I have to say a big thanks to mum for giving me the push I needed. I loved the Uni course and after I finished that almost a Decade later and I really enjoy Surveying.

I love that some weeks I can see nothing by trees and then other weeks I'm staring at code all day trying to figure out why my Image Macro I built for 12d isn't working. Variety between office and field, and even within those 2 (construction/property/detail) is what keeps me sane I think.

A big thanks to everyone for sharing a little bit about yourselves and how you got your start. After all, surveying is more than just about numbers and lines on the ground, algorithms and residuals, it's also about the history and the stories behind the people that played a roll in the evolution of the profession, large and small. That story continues to be written and it is my great pleasure to have everyone on here as one of my peers and that I get to play some miniscule roll in the evolution of that story.

:good:

Carry on.

When I was 19 years old in Clearwater, Florida I was an unemployed line cook. My sisters boyfriend had a job at a local surveying/engineering firm and they had just taken on a couple of large residential projects and needed help. He told me that it was easy work, just standing in the center of a road all day making sure nobody ran over the backsite. First day on the job, that is exactly what I did. 2 days later we were neck deep in the swamp cutting out roadway centerline. Did I mention that it was the middle of July in West Central Florida? Little did I know that we were running out a section line to start laying out the development that was half in a swamp. I managed to survive that summer and realized that I actually liked the work and I liked working outdoors. That was 32 years ago and I still love what I do.

1967, NW Oklahoma. My dad had just started a business a few months earlier. I got put to work that summer. I was just turning 14. By the time I was 15 I had decided that I was going to be a surveyor.

I still am surveying 47 years later.

If I am still mobile enough and have enough of my wits left, I still will be in another 47 years.B-)

My mother would not entertain me moving from Adelaide to Sydney to study veterinary science as a uni floozy may lead me astray . Not understanding that I was already living 50 miles away from my parents I could but conclude Adelaide girls were not so quick as those Sydney students pictured on the black and white teli.

I wanted an out door job, so I blindly enrolled for the surveying degree course at Adelaide University in the fabulous innocent 60's. To then be promptly called up but deferred until graduation, only to find me MU as they said my right cartilage should be immediately removed.

Only ever applied for one position as a rooky green graduate, then asked to move a few years later with the boss to a new firm. In '78 gained my license and immediately hung out my shingle.

BTW that RH knee cartilage is still faithfully walking up hill down dale....

RADU