Who employs surveyors in the military? And what units are they with? Just curious.
Typically artillery and engineering units. There used to be at least 3 titles, Artillery surveyor, topographic surveyor and construction surveyor
Role Expansion in a Volatile Environment: http://www.profsurv.com/magazine/article.aspx?i=71020
Geospatial Professional Teresa Smithson wrote about her experience working with the Army’s Logistical Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) in Afghanistan in the November issue of PSM.
I was a Topographic Engineer in the Army Corps of Engineers.
Air Force has Cartographic Engineers,
Navy has Hydrographic Engineers.
All above titles are for Officers; not for enlisted personnel.
Not sure what the titles are for NOAA Corps Officers.
Navy had a rating of Engineering Aid when I was in, The job was just as it sounded but did include Surveying. I did spend 2 weeks with a Sea Bee engineering unit once while doing my annual 2 week stunt in the reserves while considering cross rating from Gunners mate, ran a level while setting forms and did some drafting the Navy way. The Sea Bees were tricky to use within the Continental US because of labor laws, and their projects were small on base things. The Rate of Engineering aid allowed for specialization to Surveying when the rate of E-6 was obtained. This is what was in place around 1977, have no clue if it that way today. When I reviewed the manuals there was little boundary information, but you could learn many other aspects of surveying thoroughly. The unit I was with was using the chain, plumb bob and transit, they did have an auto level, it was an olive drab Leitz.
jud
Date correction, it was the summer of 75.
jud
Who employs surveyors in the military? And what units are they with? Just curious.
Tab btry
Divarty
Gun btry
Lance battalion
Research and development in Alaska
Instructor at fort sill
My first party chief spent his time as a drafty on a first order control crew with the army. talked about spending a month in the jungles of Panama trying to get on set of angles. He had been a surveyor before getting his draft notice.
I have had at least three chiefs work for me that were artillery surveyors in the army.
Many different types of surveyors in military. Some mentioned above. I was a geodetic surveyor. We supported established geodetic control for artillery surveyors, for construction or engineering units. We also did topo surveys mine fields airport surveys like the faa safety obstruction. Set compass rose. Triangulation gps level runs. Hydrographic. I even did boundary surveys in other countries with the authorization from the countries leaders. So not at all different than non military surveyors. Just in military its more concentrated based on the mission. I was taught under tunnel surveyor from Vietnam war days. He mostly taught basic course and repairs and adjustments to levels t-3 etc. he was a wealth of knowledge. I know several artillery surveyors from before during and after my time. They all have either become licensed or lifetime crew chiefs from different branches of military. As a geodetic surveyor because of my time in private sector i did a lot of support and helping other branches in engineering and construction side . That was not the norm but I had the experience so it just worked well.
The NOAA Corps consists of officers only; there are no enlisted members. There are neither LDOs, Restricted Line nor Warrant Officers. While they have military (Navy) ranks they are NOT a military service. They are a uniformed service.
There are currently 321 NOAA Corps officers with ranks from O-1 to O9. There are no Staff Corps like the USN’s Civil Engineering Corps.
Until the 1990s the position of Director of the National Geodetic Survey was a NOAA officer slot. Of course, by then large field survey projects were largely a thing of the past.
The current NGS Director is a former NOAA Corps officer; her two predecessors were civilians.
The most recent billet list I have seen is here:
USMC 0261
Geographic Intelligence Specialist
It's how I got into the Survey Game ... and GIS ... and Drones.
https://www.liveabout.com/marine-corps-enlisted-job-descriptions-3345299
@firestix The best unit ever. It is the very reason I despise the saying GIS is Get It Surveyed. Every bit of our geodetic work went into a GIS database and product deliverables. Of course the imagery mapping and other information was not always at the term Survey Grade. But we still had the accurate data and it didn’t change.
I also found out that 0261s can now be Special Operations Capability Specialists ... I missed my time. 🙁
https://www.marsoc.com/career-paths/socs/
@firestix They didn’t call it that but we did much of that and more. Now what some did here and there gets a title is all . SERE soso. Etc. I became SASO instructor for our Battalion a few from each company were voluntold lol. I will tell you it was not fun. But I made it through and when we set it up to train the battalion they started saying well we should not have to do that or that. So they made us just get people through. I was ticked off lol. Because i had gone through much worse to become an instructor. But we were in a time crunch.
