What do you consider to be your highest achievement so far in your career in Land Surveying?
What do you hope it to be?
A SOLO(meaning ONLY me), ALTA of a steel mill that was about 4-1/2 miles long and enclosed about 250 acres, with total station and L1 GPS.
The final map comprised of 32(if I remember right), 24 X 36 sheets in order to show detail.
The deal fell through on September 11, 2001(slated to be finalized on the 12th), after the attacks cause all the stock markets plummeted and the sale was contingent on the existing value of the stocks of the company buying the steel mill.
> a steel mill that was about 4-1/2 miles long and enclosed about 250 acres
It was 4.5 miles long and 458 feet wide?
Actually one of the first surveys I worked on. A survey of an original Penn Patent against an all ready surveyed patent. There were 2 overlaps and 1 gore per the patents. To settle the matter my father applied for a Warrant for the gore, had it assessed and surveyed by another, received a Patent signed by the PA Governor then sold it to the developer of the first surveyed parcel. I would have to dig out the info to find out which of the original parcels was senior. I do recall that one had an earlier Warrant but a latter Patent. The resolution of the junior/senior matter was not pertinent to the overall development as the second large tract was also then acquired for the development.
As a part of the survey I wrote a cogo program on punch cards for an IBM mainframe to solve the traverse and boundary line. I had a Physics grad assistant as instructor who was a PA farm boy. My father hired him as part time summer help in his farm equipment business. He brought out an experiemntal laser and the farm owner brought a generator. We set it up on line, turned it on at night and flagged out a long line for clearing through the woods.
Been downhill ever since.
Twenty five years later I surveyed some of the lots in that development for construction. The farm fields had been completely overgrown. Clearing could easily take 2 to 3 times longer than the actual reconn and surveying. The survey company owner and myself could be 20 feet apart on a sideline and still not yet be able to see each other, mostly thornapples, scrub oak, laurel and rhododendron.
Paul in PA
Not An Unreasonable Shape
Older steel mills stretch out for miles along rivers/railroad tracks. Sometime they are trapped in the one or two city block wide area next to all the employees homes. Most of the defunct Bethlehem Plant of Bethlehem Steel was only a few blocks wide. The Number Two Machine shop was one crane bay wide and over a quarter mile long. it was the largest machine shop in the free world and had lathes 120 feet long.
Paul in PA
Double Post
Opps, Paul in PA
Maybe 1500 feet above sea level.
Mentoring future surveyors
Writing an expert report in a boundary dispute and having a superior court judge adopt it in summary judgment.
Passing the exam on the first attempt?
Presidential Citation from association?
Ego increasing comments by Superior Court Judge in Interim Judgment (second part of trial coming up this spring)?
Making the new survey technician with 20 years experience in CAD say "Wait, stop, tell me how you did those things in CAD? Wow"?
Determining the varying differences between NGVD and NAVD for the area and having my conclusions used by several other surveyors? (They were not VERTCON's solutions)
Or making Dad proud? He was beaming when I got the citation and he almost framed the interim judgment.
Hopefully the best is yet to come.
Thus far I would have to say passing both federal portions of the surveyors test on the first try. I had to take the WV state test twice. I also passed the PA state test on the first try. My other great accomplishment as a businees owner was finally becoming known as Neil instead of "Charlie's grandson". That took about 3 years.
Having the BLM accept a good number of corners I found or reestablished. I was there about about 10-15 years before they showed up to resurvey a couple townships in Sawyer County, WI. And I didn't accept some concrete monuments with brass caps that were set earlier as part of a survey of an Indian Reservation. 🙂
Looking Backward and it's all Uphill?
> What do you consider to be your highest achievement so far in your career in Land Surveying?
>
> What do you hope it to be?
Well, you're only as good as your last survey and my attitude is that the next project is going to surpass everything I've ever done before. I'm fairly picky about the work I take on, so I do virtually zero routine work. If it's difficult, I willing to do it.
I don't look forward to the day when I look backward and it's all uphill.
Looking Backward and it's all Uphill?
My two sons.
Both fellow surveyors.
After more than 20 years of working in this business, I went back to school and finished my 4 year degree. Passed the first NCEES during senior year and second NCEES 6 months later and the State exam a month after that. Yes, all that experience helped!
Best felling was when one of my class mates told me during our graduation ceremony, "I would not have made it here without your tutoring".
Incredible! No one has mentioned alcohol or drugs.
Must be quite a dull bunch of surveyors here. I know I am.
Registered for 30 years and surveying for about 37 years and I have never been shot at that I know of.
:good:
When I read the question, I immediately thought of the following story:
I worked at a company in Paducah, KY for a number of years. After a long time of not being there anymore, I was at a chapter meeting. One of the new licensees receiving their license at the meeting was a fellow (forestry degree no surveying experience) that I had worked with in Paducah.
There was a formal presentation of the licenses. After the meeting, we were talking and he said he had planned on a little speech acknowledging the training in surveying that I had provided him. It was really nice as I had not thought much of sitting in the hotel room teaching him to set-up a spread sheet to reduce the notes (and the math behind it) or any of the other training as anything more than just what is supposed to be done. The guy is very sharp and would have learned things one way or another, but to hear that my time and teaching was appreciated was very nice.
Being asked to participate in the writing of the CFeds examination.
I can't say for sure what's the best, so here's the top 5 in no particular order
1. When I told the old man the damn corner wasn't there and even he couldn't go find it behind me! Vindication milestone.
2. Successfully negotiating my first O&G contract and being the lead surveyor for all projects and project manager instead of being junior to another. Business Milestone
3. Kicking the teeth of a landman in who said he had a lease on a tract of land, that I had vacancy field notes for, and that had never been patented. He said something like, Boy, I know what I'm talking about, and the president of the O&G company was there and I retorted, well unless your lease is from the State of Texas, Jesus, or GOD himself, we can't drill on that damn chunk of dirt right there (I pointed at the vacancy). The O&G president took my side (the in house landman already had read my report of that area and I'm sure advised the president I knew what I was talking about) and told the landman to pound sand and get him a lease from the state. Street cred milestone.
4. Successfully negotiating my way out of a situation with a double barrel shotgun placed to my head and learning much from that and never allowing myself or my crew to get in that position again. Situational awareness milestone.
Finally
5. When found in a crappy situation, many many counties from home, that there was no way the project wouldn't go to court, and it was all gonna be on me, that I made the correct value judgement calls, necessary research, necessary field work, and prepared a small forest of plats, descriptions, conflict exhibits, and surveyors report, only to find myself getting to watch (after the rule was envoked) the other surveyor get deposed for 4 hours, and then to get deposed myself for 3 1/2 hours, and ultimately win. Jurisprudence milestone.
Tomorrow may have the game clincher in it, I just don't know. But the look on my dad's face when I got him the first time on that corner, after he'd crammed it up my butt so many times, gonna be damn tough to top. The rest is just self aggrandizing, but proving myself to my dad and gaining his respect as an equal, yeah, that's it.