@ foggyidea
Our math teacher held a class outside to show how math can be important to determine a location for a new auditorium.
It all made sense and was just natural and fit my lifestyle of being outdoors and off the well beaten path.
I could say it was a moment of insanity.?ÿ
It was a rather circuitous route after 7 12 years in the Navy and another year working as defense contractor I convinced myself that I was tired of turning wenches on F18's, F14's and going to sea. I knew I wanted my own business but had no clue. So I took some aptitude tests and guess what.....surveying was one of the options.
It was then I started seeing surveyors everywhere. I made some visits?ÿ (cold calls) to local surveyors where I was at the time in Maryland and talked to them.
Saw an ad in Backpacker magazine for a Associate Degree in Surveying & Mapping at what was Denver Institute of Technology so I packed my truck and headed for Denver. Hated that miserable wretched place but I finished and pointed my truck back to Georgia and here I be.
I still have my FAA Mechanics License and 2 classes short of another Associate Degree from Embry Riddle & changing careers was a foolish thing to do as I had to start out at the bottom in a career that undervalues itself.
But at least I have not had to follow through on my threat to take my clothes off for money...............yet.
I was at DIT in 1980. In fact my avatar picture is from a DIT field/camping trip to the mountains. When were you there?
I could say it was a moment of insanity.?ÿ
It was a rather circuitous route after 7 12 years in the Navy and another year working as defense contractor I convinced myself that I was tired of turning wenches on F18's, F14's and going to sea. I knew I wanted my own business but had no clue. So I took some aptitude tests and guess what.....surveying was one of the options.
It was then I started seeing surveyors everywhere. I made some visits?ÿ (cold calls) to local surveyors where I was at the time in Maryland and talked to them.
Saw an ad in Backpacker magazine for a Associate Degree in Surveying & Mapping at what was Denver Institute of Technology so I packed my truck and headed for Denver. Hated that miserable wretched place but I finished and pointed my truck back to Georgia and here I be.
I still have my FAA Mechanics License and 2 classes short of another Associate Degree from Embry Riddle & changing careers was a foolish thing to do as I had to start out at the bottom in a career that undervalues itself.
But at least I have not had to follow through on my threat to take my clothes off for money...............yet.
I was at DIT in 1980. In fact my avatar picture is from a DIT field/camping trip to the mountains. When were you there?
1991-92
1976. I had surfed my last couch wearing out my welcome at every place that took me in. Basically homeless?ÿrudderless. I asked my mom if I could move back in and she gave me a pamphlet for a new land surveying program at the local technical school saying that she thought it would suit me. Finished the two year program by working nights at one of the first self service gas stations around which allowed me basically paid study hall. First job was construction inspection and a little surveying. I often think about the people that steered my ship those first few years. Especially Mom.?ÿ
I went to work as a corrections officer when I was 22. It was a great paying job that changed my path in life in a good way. I hated it though and started taking college classes part time. After 7.5 years on the job I quit to go to the NYS Ranger School full time. I wanted to continue my civil service career as a Forest Ranger. Halfway through I changed to surveying. My worst day surveying is way better than my best day working in the jail.
Gregg
Made A's in Geometry and told my High School Guidance Counselor I liked to draw maps. She found me a job with the Corps of Engineers.
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Straight out of school, working forestry on our?ÿ West Coast, got allocated to a survey crew...
Engineering graduate doing whatever needed done to complete the projects our little consulting firm had taken on. After obtaining my P.E. a few simple boundary survey projects came along. ?ÿWent out on my own. ?ÿNever looked back. ?ÿHave the L.S., as well, BTW.
This is exactly what I'm feeling right now. I'm 5 years out of school, my first real experience through an internship was working with the stakeout crew for a design firm subed to a local contractor for highway layout. I'm just getting back into it a little now. I never took my FE, being on the contractor side I never saw a real use for being a PE (I know that's not true). I actually just looked into the FE the other day because in NC I know a PE is one way towards a PLS. My last boss who graduated from the same school as I did in NY, had both PE and PLS. Now, I do see the value of being a PLS. Something I want to look info for sure.?ÿ
I went to Ranger School with dreams of becoming a forest ranger. That didn't end up resonating with me, but I was pretty pleased with myself when I solved (and hand drafted) my first horizontal curves.?ÿ
Chased a pretty girl whose Dad was a surveyor. He liked me more than she did so she dumped me and he hired me. That was 42 years ago.
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The Hack
I grew up on a farm in middle Tennessee.?ÿ I liked farming.?ÿ Got a degree in tractor-driving as I call it.?ÿ UT called it Agricultural Mechanization.?ÿ Worked my way back to the farm.?ÿ After about 10 years, more or less, I figured out that I was a good five years behind on my five-year plan.?ÿ Got offered a chance to do something else and that suited my dad, who owned the land I was trying to make a living on and develop into a paying proposition.?ÿ I also figured out that anyone who has control of enough assets to earn a decent living farming just may be crazy if he risk the bank on the vagaries of the weather and the other uncertainties of farming.?ÿ?ÿ
My wife and I built a house in 1982 at the peak of the high interest rates, not because we wanted to but because we needed somewhere to live.?ÿ We cut an acre off the farm and I watched the survey crew at work and met the surveyor in the process.?ÿ After the first thing I tried after my farming days were over didn't pan out, I remembered the surveyor and it occurred to me that had some appeal.?ÿ I applied but he didn't need anyone at the moment.?ÿ So I spent another six months reminding myself that I did not like sales that involved cold-calls.
Then the phone rang and the surveyor asked if I was still looking for a job.?ÿ I said, "No.?ÿ But let's talk."?ÿ And now 32 years later, I am both a LS in Tennessee and I work at Hayes where I get to play with the latest toys and I do not make cold calls.
Mine is the most convoluted and twisted of stories and I couldn't invent?ÿone with more twists and turns. Back in '76 Dad, who was an architect, took a job in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I was snotty nosed punk with a knack for finding trouble. Dad figured if I had a job to occupy my free time I might just stay out of trouble so when I was about fourteen he found me?ÿa job as a gopher for Gulf Surveys Ltd.?ÿand so when I wasn't in school I was out roaming the desert with French and British surveyors. Can't say I had any aspirations?ÿof becoming a surveyor, but the money was good and every day was an adventure. Fast forward, family disintegrates and I find myself in LA, sixteen, homeless and no job skills. By the time I was eighteen I was working at a Broker Dealer cold calling securities. Went on to get my series 7 and 22?ÿsecurities license and life was pretty good, but when I looked in the mirror I had the nagging sense I was living a lie. Flamed out in my late twenties and struck off?ÿto Alaska for a lifesectomy, figured?ÿworking on fishing boats all over the State was about as far as I could get from my past life. I honestly didn't know what work was up until then. Finding the fishing lifestyle not conductive to long term relationships?ÿI changed hats again and picked up a hammer and nail bags and set out to become a carpenter. Got fired my first day for not being able to read a tape, but I went on to build a lot of houses, including my own. Along the way I made a friend who mentioned they'd attended a surveying program at UAA. One thing I learned from fishing on the Bering Sea in January, was the value of an education. Looking back over all the things I'd done along the way, I came to realize I had more fun and adventure on those survey crews?ÿroaming the desert than all the other jobs combined and so I attended our local community college and went on to go through that surveying program and managed to graduate in 2001.?ÿI was?ÿon a mission and by?ÿ2006 I'd earned my ticket. Now when I look in the mirror that fella looking back has a sly grin and a?ÿwink. No longer?ÿam I?ÿliving a lie, but?ÿa dream.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
Mine is the most convoluted and twisted of stories and I couldn't invent?ÿone with more twists and turns. Back in '76 Dad, who was an architect, took a job in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I was snotty nosed punk with a knack for finding trouble. Dad figured if I had a job to occupy my free time I might just stay out of trouble so when I was about fourteen he found me?ÿa job as a gopher for Gulf Surveys Ltd.?ÿand so when I wasn't in school I was out roaming the desert with French and British surveyors. Can't say I had any aspirations?ÿof becoming a surveyor, but the money was good and every day was an adventure. Fast forward, family disintegrates and I find myself in LA, sixteen, homeless and no job skills. By the time I was eighteen I was working at a Broker Dealer cold calling securities. Went on to get my series 7 and 22?ÿsecurities license and life was pretty good, but when I looked in the mirror I had the nagging sense I was living a lie. Flamed out in my late twenties and struck off?ÿto Alaska for a lifesectomy, figured?ÿworking on fishing boats all over the State was about as far as I could get from my past life. I honestly didn't know what work was up until then. Finding the fishing lifestyle not conductive to long term relationships?ÿI changed hats again and picked up a hammer and nail bags and set out to become a carpenter. Got fired my first day for not being able to read a tape, but I went on to build a lot of houses, including my own. Along the way I made a friend who mentioned they'd attended a surveying program at UAA. One thing I learned from fishing on the Bering Sea in January, was the value of an education. Looking back over all the things I'd done along the way, I came to realize I had more fun and adventure on those survey crews?ÿroaming the desert than all the other jobs combined and so I attended our local community college and went on to go through that surveying program and managed to graduate in 2001.?ÿI was?ÿon a mission and by?ÿ2006 I'd earned my ticket. Now when I look in the mirror that fella looking back has a sly grin and a?ÿwink. No longer?ÿam I?ÿliving a lie, but?ÿa dream.
So you Surveyed in your younger days, did a few different jobs, decided you needed to go to College, then went back to your first job. That is twisted.?ÿ?ÿ
I was working a factory job with a weird schedule so I found a part time job at the local Engineering firm for extra coin and something to do besides mow the lawn. That November, they offered me a full time position. I started trying Photogrammetry and couldn't see in stereo. Went from that to counting frames and laying out flight lines.
Then our office surveyor had a stroke, in the office. Forgot everything he knew right down to turning on a computer.
Myself and another technician became the "survey crew". He had some construction staking experience and I had no idea it was even a thing. Our RPLS would direct us, we did what he said.
Long story longer...
Instrument operator in another office wasn't going to be promoted because no one in that office ever quit or retired. They brought him to the office I was in, promoted him to crew chief and he taught me everything I knew up to that point. In 5 years, we tripled the amount of survey work for that one office. Been doing it ever since, in all capacities, and love it!
T. Nelson - SAM
Ever since I can remember, dad always thought my brother and I had to work to get what we wanted. He helped?ÿget a?ÿwork ethic most other millennials unfortunately do not have. I worked for the same lumber company that he did?ÿat age 10, worked odd jobs as a health physics tech for my grandpa and was making lumber deliveries as soon as I got my license.
After I graduated high school, I enjoyed watching the crews build the houses and moved on to the next, so I asked around and got a job with one of the local contractors. A few years later I was working as a laborer on a road project rerouting a local canyon road. Had my first taste of surveying assisting the P.E intern stake out offsets with a GPS and shooting grades for the graders.
The economy tanked and I found myself working at a call center for Directv. This is were I decided that I needed an education. Went to the local college ( ISU ) and asked what degrees they had that would allow me to work with my hands, my brain and be outside most of the time. We came up with Geology and Surveying among a few other non-enticing options. Oddly enough my brother went to the?ÿjob fair a week earlier at the?ÿcollege?ÿand had talked with the head of the Geomatics program. He signed up the next day.
He started that year and I a year later.
I graduated with a BS in geology from univ of Montana in 2000. I loved Missoula but the job market sucked. So I moved to Colorado, Nederland to be exact. A really cool mining town at 8300 feet settled against the continental divide. I figured I could do the long commute into Denver for a job with a geology consulting/mining company.?ÿ
3rd day in town I was scanning the want ads (no internet searching in those days). An ad caught my eye:
WORK IN THE MOUNTAINS?ÿ
land surveyor instrument man wanted, call xxx-xxxx
I used a total station once, helping a fellow geology student map a sand bar; and I certainly wanted a job where I worked outside (I knew I could never have a desk job).?ÿ
Called the guy up, so happens he was working for the town of Nederland, laying out a new sewer line. He said stop by the site at noon tomorrow to talk. I meet the owner/party chief and his instrument man. The owner was hesitant with my lack of experience. I told him that I would hang with them for the rest of the day and shadow and help where I could. I told him if he liked me at the end of the day he could hire me, if not, send me on my way and he owed me nothing.?ÿ
Here I am now, a second BS in surveying and mapping, licensed in AK for the last eleven years. I now own my own company with several contracts on the books. Life couldn??t be better, and I wouldn??t change it for the world.
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Back in 1990, I was working for DSHS in an institution. One Wednesday afternoon I walked by the personnel office and saw a "local list" posting for an entry-level WSDOT technician position (in those days, local lists posted outside of the agency in question were virtually unheard of). So I applied, got a temporary position as a Transportation Technician 1 that became permanent several months later, and I took a real liking to surveying. Eventually worked my way up to a PC and got my license earlier this year.
I think it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Protecting the public interest and the bona fide rights of the adjoiners is thoroughly enjoyable for me.
The only superior evidence is that which you haven't yet found.
It just happened!
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I took the US Civil Service Test in High School.
About 3 months after graduation I was working graveyard shift in a gas station, and got a call from the US Forest Service, asking if I would be interested in a Temporary Job with the USFS as an Engineering Technician (GS-2). DUH!
Next Thursday it will be 50 years since I started surveying...what a long strange trip it's been!
?ÿ ??ÿ
Because of the outrageously high income level associated with the profession.?ÿ ? ?ÿ
I became a surveyor because of a bad knee!
In high school I had signed up to join the Navy. During the physical, there was a questionnaire asking a million questions and I checked no on everything. At the bottom was a statement about fine and imprisonment for perjury so I changed the check mark about previous problems with my knees. I stayed an extra day for x-rays and another doctor which told me no.
Next I went to TSTI Waco and the aptitude test pointed me toward the Civil Engineering Technology program. One of the instructors was Andrew L Harbin which is a name some of the older ones here may recognize. The first week or two of every class was a math refresher course.
I had my knee scoped 20 years later to remove some cartilage and it still hurts from time to time.
James