Mark Mayer, post: 409049, member: 424 wrote: Another thing to consider is that people are living, and therefore often working, longer. When I was a kid retiring at 65 and kicking the bucket by 70 was very average. Now the average age at death is closer to 80. Not many surveyors can get the scratch together to live off their savings (plus SS) for 15 years or more.
What is 'retiring'?
Rich., post: 409058, member: 10450 wrote: What is 'retiring'?
It's a synonym for the "dirt nap".
Tommy Young, post: 408919, member: 703 wrote: I believe that this business of "the average age of surveyors" is overblown
This.
Without metadata a number like the average age of licensees is worthless. There are probably a few underling national demographics changes that account for a large percentage of the perception that we are an outlier as an aging profession.
- People in general live and work longer than in the past. Both for quality of life issues to stay active and the fact that a five year economic slowdown probably had a big effect on people's retirement plans can't be overlooked. Heck you could probably lower the average age of surveyors in Arizona by a year or two if you could convince Bruce Small to retire 😉
- The nation is aging in general. The median age of the US population in 1970 was 28.1; in 2010 it was 37.2.
- There are vast interstate age related migrations going on that are driven by both cultural and economic factors. If you live in an area with no young surveyors there is is good chance that there are fewer young people in general. Over the last decade the average age of the population of Michigan has increased at a rate 2.5 times faster than Virginia.
As for the lack of mentoring, thats a two way street. If you're not trying to hire college graduates, pay them a decent wage, and pass on the knowledge of the professionals elders then stop bemoaning the lack of mentoring. If you're a surveyor in your 50's you have to realize that twice as many high school graduates go on to college directly after graduation than did in 1980. The young version of you: decently educated, some high school math background, and willing to take a job at 18 doesn't exist.
Monte, post: 408896, member: 11913 wrote: but they had a pretty good article in this issue, and I'm including a link, in case anyone else would like to read it. I don't know all of ya'lls feelings on the state of surveying, but I feel we are loosing the ART of surveying, we barely have old surveyors mentor young guys any longer, and so many skills, tips, tricks, and other old ways are being lost, replaced by words in a classroom and a timed test.
http://www.pobonline.com/articles/100720-surveyors-footsteps-heirs-to-the-surveyors-cache
On the other hand, the "Art" of engineering, law, and medicine have long since been replaced by the "knowledge" of same. This required the addition (not replacement) of formal education and exam with experience. It turned those "Arts" into "professions" and resulted in increased competency and scope of practice driving increased demand and resulting in greater financial return and hence more individuals entering those professions. Failure to follow that trend in the 20th century has brought surveying to its current state of affairs, wherein it may well be consumed by the engineering and/or legal professions. I don't see that as a bad thing if it raises the standard of living of those practicing surveying. I don't care what you call me, as long as you call me in my new truck over a synced connection while I'm on vacation at 65 years of age because I have a good retirement account from my years of helping the public. And I won't be too busy or too poor to spend some of my time helping teach/mentor the younger folks (as long as they have some common basic knowledge to build on), rather than compete with them at 1970's fee levels until I keel over in the field at 95 years old.
Other than paying some fees and possibly wasting some time at CE programs, what encouragement is there for a person to willingly drop their license. Thus, there may be some still out there at 100+ who are in the pool being tabulated but haven't done a bit of actual survey work in 40 years. I will never let my licenses lap, so I understand how this could happen.
Duane Frymire, post: 409072, member: 110 wrote: On the other hand, the "Art" of engineering, law, and medicine have long since been replaced by the "knowledge" of same.
Well...since one of the predominate themes of western modernity is that it's artist have, themselves, betrayed art; what chance does the relatively "minor" art of surveying have?
"Art picked up the torch of beauty, ran with it for a while, and then dropped it in the pissoirs of Paris"
-Sir Roger Scruton
This, is a really good thread. Keep this discussion flowing.
The average age of an American has increased 2.5 years over the last 15 years. Look at the numbers entering the Profession as guaged by successful FS exams. The difference is too stark to ignore.
I read this article a while ago. If I remember correctly one of the solutions offered was a better pay rate for people starting out to revive our numbers. As a recent inductee (less than 10 years in profession) I agree. We have organizations and countless speakers harping that we are to be considered professionals (NOT registered for pete's sake!) and we need all of the things that come with that...well, except the pay.
Outsiders looking in or lay people expect if they are joining into a "profession" there will be good money starting out, yet we are paying personel and still charging clients prices from the 1980's. So i think that's one of the more tangible solutions to getting younger folks in.
Yes, you've got to love surveying to be here with us. At the same time, it is ignorant to assume that some of these pay rates offered to hungry young bucks who want to get licensed is nothing more than a slap in the face.
From my point of view the age of the LS population is not the primary concern, the primary concern is the quality of work put out.
I think that the Canadians are on the right path by formalizing the process;
http://www.aols.org/sites/default/files/Articling Contract (Appendix A).pdf
Signing off on experience for a LS candidate does not always indicate that any genuine mentoring ever took place, many view it as verification of employment and a carrot to keep people moving along.
The division of work between field and office afforded by modern technology has broken the old pathways. Nostalgia and isolation cloud the perception of many on this question.
Improving the skill set of those that produce the work stamped by an LS should be a priority, doing so of course raises the compensation adequate to maintain them which creates a conundrum. I am not sure, but feel that a contract entered into by the LS may make them engage in training their people beyond that which is absolutely necessary.
This is a place where state societies could step up, or perhaps the boards.
There is no denying that that the number of licensees has lessened through the years. Just go to your state Board website and plug in random license numbers. You can see the years they were issued and see less and less handed out in the more recent years....
That being said.... NY ANNUAL CONFERENCE IS NEXT WEEK AND THEY ARE OFFERING A COURSE ON 'HOW TO TRAIN NEW TECHNICIANS' to me, this is a can't miss. It's not easy to train people. It probably comes easier for some than others but this is a great course I haven't seen offered. I'll be in attendance.
[INDENT]The other looming question is whether these changes in the total number of surveyors, the demand for surveyors, the advances in technology that let surveyors answer demand in new ways, etc. is, as laid out in the long quote from John Michael Greer below, a problem or a predicament?
[INDENT]
Despite the differences between them, though, all three proposals conceptualize the situation in the same way ÛÒ as a problem in need of a solution. This may seem like common sense. ItÛªs not, and a historical parallel may help point up whatÛªs going on here.
Imagine, then, that some ancestor of mine shows up in a prosperous farming village in the English Midlands on a bright autumn day around 1700. ItÛªs a peaceful scene perched on the edge of catastrophic change, courtesy of the imminent arrival of the industrial revolution. Within a century, every building in the village will be torn down, its fields turned into pasture for sheep, the farmers and cottagers driven off their land by enclosure acts passed by a distant Parliament in order to provide wool for EnglandÛªs cloth industry and profits for a new class of industrial magnates. For the young men of the village, EnglandÛªs transformation into a worldwide empire constantly warring with its European rivals prophesies a future of press gangs, military service, and death on battlefields around the globe. For a majority of the others, the future offers a forced choice between a life of factory labor at starvation wages in the appalling urban slums of 18th-century England, and emigration to an uncertain fate in the American colonies. A lucky few will prosper beyond their wildest dreams by betting on ways of making a living that nobody on that autumn day has even imagined yet.
Imagine that, improbably enough, my ancestor has figured all this out in advance, and has come to warn the villagers of what is in store for them. There on the village green in the shade of an old oak, with everyone from the squire and the parson to the swineherds and day laborers gathered around him, he tells them that their way of life will be utterly destroyed, and tries to sketch out for them how the coming of industrial society will impact them, their children, and the land and life they love. Imagine that, even more improbably, they take the warning seriously. As the afternoon passes, the villagers agree that this is a serious problem indeed. What, they ask my imaginary ancestor, does he think they should do about it? What solutions does he have to offer?
If the question were put that way, what could he say in response? From todayÛªs perspective, itÛªs clear that nothing the villagers could have done would have deflected the course of the industrial revolution even slightly. Causes far beyond their control ÛÒ geological events millions of years in the past that laid down huge coal deposits in the shallow seas that would someday become England, economic patterns going back most of the way to the fall of Rome, political shifts that had been shaking all of Europe for two centuries ÛÒ drove England toward its industrial transformation. If by a solution, his listeners meant a way to change the whole situation for the better, my imaginary ancestor would have had to say that there was none.
At most, he might be able to give the villagers advice on how to cope with the torrent of changes about to break over their heads, and it would have to be general advice. The consequences of the industrial revolution were just as complex as its causes. The destruction of EnglandÛªs traditional rural economy and the society that depended on it drove waves of change that moved out in all directions. Successful responses to it followed the same divergent paths. Some prospered by abandoning their old lives completely and making the crossing to a new continent or a new economy, some by digging in their heels and maintaining their old way of life as long as possible, others by staying flexible and keeping their options open. At the same time, others found that one or another of these strategies led only to impoverishment and an early death.
The question itself, of course, is the difficulty. What those English villagers faced in the years after 1700 was a predicament, not a problem. The difference is that a problem calls for a solution; the only question is whether one can be found and made to work, and once this is done, the problem is solved. A predicament, by contrast, has no solution. Faced with a predicament, people come up with responses. Those responses may succeed, they may fail, or they may fall somewhere in between, but none of them ÛÏsolvesÛ the predicament, in the sense that none of them makes it go away.[/INDENT][/INDENT]
Very interesting.
Sadly, it is true that typically the outside forces far outweigh the possible rebuff that a united community could use against them. The assumed "greater good" overpowering individual freedoms.
No matter the cause of the problem/predicament, or even if the current hysteria of the "lack of future surveyors" is true or not, I would think that we could all agree that the answer is definitely not in lowering the standards/requirements for licensure, has a few in "power" seem to be hell bent on doing to quell the building hysteria.
Brian Allen, post: 409377, member: 1333 wrote: No matter the cause of the problem/predicament, or even if the current hysteria of the "lack of future surveyors" is true or not, I would think that we could all agree that the answer is definitely not in lowering the standards/requirements for licensure, has a few in "power" seem to be hell bent on doing to quell the building hysteria.
The only thing worse than not enough competent Surveyors would be a pile of Licensed idiots...
Part of what needs to change is our model for training people. I recently hired a couple of really bright kids right out of college, they both had Geology degrees. What I quickly realized is that these guys needed to be challenged or they wouldn't stick around. Out of necessity, to protect my own interests, I immediately had them working in both the field and the office, learning AutoCAD and exposing them to boundary problems. The traditional model of working as a chainmen for five years, then progressing to Party Chief, then eventually learning things in the office is just too long to keep bright and ambitious people in the profession as there is too much competition from other fields.
I think Roger's got it mostly right.
But I wonder about the future of a profession that has to convince people to come to it.
I'm inclined to say let the shortage continue until the demand for our services is so great that fees increase. Then salaries increase, and then more people enter the profession.
I don't know of anything else where less competition is seen as a bad thing. And if we're in fear of our profession being taken away from us, by engineers and others, then we're really not much of a profession to begin with.
I grow tired of these articles. They want to represent the author in a light that is such that he/she can only be seen as a master of the craft and all others subservient to them. That's hardly the case. In fact, they're the only ones who wanted to write the article. With the exception of Gary Kent and the technical articles, more "authors" are notorious than distinguished in my opinion. This one appears to me to be no exception with no substance other than some reminiscing of days gone by and a firm pat on the back for explaining how to interpret a deed. Good for him. I'm sure he's not the only one who teaches their techs what the differences are.
I also grow weary of the "old guys rule" BS I've read for the last 20 years. I'm 39 and not old by ANY means. I was licensed at 25 and passed the SIT at 21. I was the second to the last group to get to ride without a degree and I would have been tied for being the youngest surveyor in Texas at 24 if I'd filled out the initial form right and not been stacked back 6 months. Big whoop. Am I a better surveyor than I was a 25, yes. Did tech help, yes. Did experience help, yes. Did I have some of the best training around, in my opinion, yes for my area of work. I also went back and finished college, ended up with about three degrees and it helped me more than the experience really could have. That time to have worked my way down the learning curve would have been too steep compared to the tangible gains made from the education.
My point is, as a 21 year old, I could do the math, as a 25 year old, I knew the deeds and basic analyzation, and at 39 I understand just how dangerous I was at 25, which only leads me to question what the hell I really know and what I'll think about my decisions as a 39 year old, when I'm 50. The only thing that hasn't changed was that ALL, and I mean EVERY BIT of that information that I needed was there when I was 21. You can't take it all in at once.
While Mr. Turner may be the consummate professional and a helluva good guy, the self-aggrandizing style or writing leaves this reader wanting more, like a better article about better information. If there is a surveyor out there that somehow gleans a gem of understanding about the current state of the profession, or a better pricing scheme based on this particular article, or articles like it, then I would question how engaged in the surveying industry that surveyor was/is and where his/her head is kept.
This has been repeated many times here
