Here is Virginia's current licensee population as of May 2017. Sad numbers for the surveyors. Seems to me to be getting smaller. 
Until we're always able to charge what we're worth, and we're turning away work, let the numbers dwindle
1200 doesn't seem to be too few to me.
How can that acronym not have a V in it?
Daniel Ralph, post: 434644, member: 8817 wrote: How can that acronym not have a V in it?
Because in Virginia, there's three "step downs" Virginia, DPOR (Dept of Occupaional Regulation) and then APELSCIDLA (Architects, PE's, LS's, Cert Interior Designers, Landscape Architects), so the "A" is Arch's. We all know we're in Virginia... aka, The Old Dominion. 😉
Carl
In California we're known as "licensees." I like that better than "regulant," which sounds too much like "ungulate," and I don't want anyone to confuse me with an elk.
Jim Frame, post: 434659, member: 10 wrote: In California we're known as "licensees." I like that better than "regulant," which sounds too much like "ungulate," and I don't want anyone to confuse me with an elk.
Regulant sounds like someone cured of constipation.
I thought the Regulants were whom Billy the Kid hung around with in Lincoln County.
Although payment is not tied to licensure, we will not get more people in the profession until we start charging what we are worth.....like.....engineers, architects, lawyers, and doctors.
This was one of my first thoughts as a layman entering surveying. "You all call yourselves a profession just like engineers, doctors, etc., but you oddly insist on abusing yourselves for doing such a respected occupation."
Self abuse.
Its a hard habit to break.
...
N
We would be APELSLAG, pronounced as 'apples lag' instead of KSBTP which tells outsiders nothing as one must first have some definition of what constitutes a "Technical Profession" that needs overseen by a Board. Our little group consists of Architects, Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, Landscape Architects and, most recently, Geologists. I believe originally it would have simply been APE without the LSLAG.
Jim Frame, post: 434659, member: 10 wrote: In California we're known as "licensees." I like that better than "regulant," which sounds too much like "ungulate," and I don't want anyone to confuse me with an elk.
[Sarcasm]Most elk are bigger than you.[/sarcasm]
Ungulates RULE!!!
FYI
Ungulata, which used to be considered an order, has been split into the following: Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates), Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates), Tubulidentata (aardvarks), Hyracoidea (hyraxes), Sirenia (dugongs and manatees), Proboscidea (elephants) and occasionally Cetacea (whales and dolphins).
old2969, post: 434723, member: 12214 wrote: Although payment is not tied to licensure, we will not get more people in the profession until we start charging what we are worth.....like.....engineers, architects, lawyers, and doctors
Okay...of the 29 years I've been surveying I've worked in one of three counties in Maryland for 27 of them (Montgomery, Frederick, and Washington), so my experience is limited in that regard.
That said, here is a question for the room. Throw out doctors and high end attorneys, do you see a perceptiable difference in standard of living between licensed surveyors and other professions/quasi-professions that require a similar amount of educational background. I'm talking engineers, architects, CPAs, teachers, social workers, foresters, urban planners, etc. Because I don't see one here. Surveyors here tend to live in the same neighborhoods, drive the same cars, send their kids to the same schools, take similar vacations, etc. as these other professionals.
As for salary/rates charged, I've been at four multidisciplinary firms where I've been high enough in management to be privy to fee and salary information. In none of these cases were surveyors who held similar titles (project surveyor/engineer, project manager, associate) payed any less than engineers, planners, landscape architects. At everyplace I've worked since I've been licensed, surveyors have billed at the same rates as PEs, and some places have billed out surveyors at a higher hourly rate than landscape architects.
Is it really that different elsewhere and I just landed, by sheer luck, in the surveyor land of milk and honey?
Also, FWIW, adoring to the ABA journal, a licensed surveyor in my county can easily make a salary that exceeds the median salary of attorneys.
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/search_wage_data_for_your_county
