I would look at it the same as a doctor that has two offices. They are at one office Monday, Wednesday, Friday and the other office on Tuesday and Thursday treating patients. Why can't a surveyor have two offices if they are the person doing the work, and meeting with clients? You can still have a survey crew, working out of office A doing the field work generated by office B, as long as they are working under your direction/supervision. With todays technology your crew should be able to get in touch with you anytime they needed. If you need to constantly watch them, than you've got a problem.
In Texas, you can only hang your shingle in one office at a time
Your name can be in the advertisements in both or multiple offices
To practice surveying services, a licensed surveyor must be in each office.
0.02
> Why can't a surveyor have two offices ....You can still have a survey crew, working out of office A doing the field work generated by office B, as long as they are working under your direction/supervision.
OK, and what about office C, D, & E? At what point does it stop? Who gets to say how many is too many? If your state has no rules about these things then I guess you are in the clear. But all 3 states I am licensed in do have rules that would make what Tommy proposes improper.
Norman,
According to the original post, the office will not be staffed by anybody but the surveyor to meet clients. I agree with you, that once you staff the office, you need to have a licensed surveyor there overseeing the office.
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> So in Oklahoma an engineer can transmit (and supervise) jobs electronically between multiple offices without being on premise...but a surveyor can't.
This is one of the big reasons I had to ditch surveying, its amazing to be in business now and have no board to report to, open as many stores as you can handle make as much dough as you can, no harm no foul.
Being limited to only the work that you can produce in your one office pretty much ensures that any surveyor will work his butt off till he is old but never rise higher and will die working, there is a limitation to what one man can supervise and that is a surveyors glass ceiling.
Sure you can hire another surveyor to run a satellite office but if he is good enough to do that most likely would be doing for himself. I have been in this business a long time and have rarely if ever seen this work out, its usually more hassle than help.
Supervising The Work ?
Where the requirement is spelled out you must be available to supervise more than 50% of the work week, there are several ways to accomplish that.
Joe Surveyor has two offices, 100 miles apart. In each Office the field crew is scheduled 4 10 hour days. In Office 'A" they work Monday to Thursday and in Office "B" they work Tuesday to Friday. Joe schedules himself Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning at "A" and Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday at "B". He has fulfilled the requirement of supervising more than half of each work week. Joe can schedule a client meeting at either location around noon and be back to the other office that day.
Joe has field crews and draftsman work out of Office "A". Joe has a secretary in Office "B" 4 or 5 days a week, that work does not have to be supervised by a professional. For when the crews are in the Office "B" area there is some backup equipment and modest supplies kept at "B", maybe a drafting table and download computer also. That was more important in the past, as today data can come and go to the field anywhere at anytime. The secretary can scan and plot drawings such that work done in the "B" area yesterday can be picked up in the "B" Office the next day. The secretary can answer the "A" phones from the "B" office so that "A"'s tech staff can work unbothered.
Personally I think a professional surveyor should be limited in the number of crews he can supervise and train. Once that limit is reached it can only be exceeded if Certified Crew Chiefs or LSITs are employed.
Paul in PA
I don't think we can judge fred not knowing his situation. There are many rural areas where that would make sense. It may require a surveyor to cover several counties to make a living. Two offices might give you an edge over the competition that have an office say 40 to 50 miles away. We cannot assume that one has bad intentions it may just be economics. Also it doesn't take a surveyor with to much on his plate to do a half fast survey, there are solo surveyors who survey for beer money. They are a much bigger problem, doing surveys without resarch and ignoring adjoining land owners documents, but I guess thats another subject. I also have 2 offices but one is my home which is 60 miles from my office, I use which ever one is closer to the county offices I need for a particular project.
What is an office? What about a Solo Surveyor?
Indiana has the 1 office rule. I would like to open another office in a town where I have a cottage. Working both places a couple days a week. I am considering becoming a solo surveyor because of this requirement. I would rather have a part time employee at both locations but will go solo if the state board would give a favorable opinion.
Update:
The other surveyor in Town B filed a complaint against Fred. He's tired of losing work and competing with Fred. What the other surveyor doesn't know is that if forced to do so, he'll shut down the office in Town A and keep the office in Town B.