My father was a surveyor. When I quit high school he said, "No son of his was going to sit around and listen to his hair grow..".
Voila, instant chainman. I had actually been helping him on the weekends since I was eight or nine, so it wasn't any culture shock.
Before that he wouldn't let me look at the stars at night with the transit unless I learned how to set it up on a point and zero it..he'd always check it before I could procede. I was probably the only fourth grader that knew how many minutes and seconds there were in one degree of arc.
It's been a good ride. Thanks, Dad.
Here's the atypical response of the group:
I fell into surveying in the mid 90's to keep a job with the same company - I was getting laid off from environmental work as a geologist. I endured a sizeable pay cut in doing that, but was able to retain my bennies & 401K.
Subsequently, having bounced around in technician-level surveying & engineering roles (I never really returned to environmental work), I made the questionable (in hind sight) decision to go back to school so I could get licensed - shortly after, the housing market tanked. Be that as it may, surveying has always been more of a means to an end for me - I've always enjoyed math/science & working outside, whatever the role was. I have since been fortunate to find work employed as a geologist again, this time in a governmental role. But I plan on keeping my license current, always keeping my options open 😉
My father is a land surveyor as well. Growing up, I was what family should be, cheap labor. In 4th grade, I did draw a self portrait, "Me as what I want to be..." and I did draw myself as a surveyor. Why didn't I draw myself as a Rock and Roll Scientist or Eccentric Billionaire? The drawing was framed and hangs in the office today.
I went to school for theoretical mathematics with the idea of teaching. After TAing a class in Real Analysis for Poets (Baby Analysis), I decided teaching was probably not for me. I graduated when the boom was starting up and my father needed another set of hands, so I started really learning the profession.
At the ripe old age of 17, school was boring me to death. I saw a pretty slick Army brochure and went from stoner high school dude to basic training at Ft. Sill in the space of about 2 months.
I will never forget being in the recruiter’s office after taking the asvab. He pulled down the two catalogues of Army jobs, flipped them both open at random and said “you’re qualified for any job you want”. One book was opened to “engineer, locomotive” the other to “Surveyor, Field Artillery.
The rest….
I graduated from college with a degree in applied mathematics with a goal of working in the aerospace industry in systems analysis. This was in 1972 and a month before I graduated there were thousands of aerospace engineers laid off. There were guys with 20 years experience pumping gas. I answered a help wanted ad for a “surveyor’s helper no experience necessary—will train”. I got hooked.
I graduated college with an Environmental Science degree (I wanted to work outdoors). Without a job I found an ad in the sunday paper, "Land Survey Technician, experience preferred, but willing to train the right person". Apparently I was the right person. 20 years later I'm the Senior Crew Chief, working mostly on DOT projects.
walking out of the bank with mum, as a tiny lad, there was a survey underway. i walked across the street and watched them work. the party was cool with my curiosity, and showed me a couple details of what they were doing. i was five years old, maybe. that stuck in my head, way in the back.
the idea surfaced again when i was about twenty years old. at that point, i was actively searching for a survey job.
1996
Studied environmental science and planning, worked as an environmental consultant for a year and yearned for more technical work.
2001
Returned to college to pursue two more degrees, physics and engineering. While attending these classes worked with a former classmate at a small multi-discipline firm as a survey/civil tech.
2003
Fell in love with surveying. Instead of finishing up my physics and engineering degrees moved to Oregon and studied surveying (geomatics) at OIT in Klamath falls.
2009
Licensed and loving it. Found enough original corners in Oregon to galvanize my love of the profession. Now just honing my skills with an eye to the future.
2012
Hanging on in Portland as a PLS.
A friend told me he was a Freshman engineering student sitting in one of those huge classrooms with 500 other engineering students. He looked out the window and saw a crew of students working with instruments. That looked much better than sitting inside so he investigated and found out they are in the Surveying program. So he switched.
An important mentor that I considered a genius at the time had a knack of bringing out typical real world usages for math applications into his classes of math and physics. We were exposed to stress on guy wires, road superelevations for faster driving, effects of different width tires stopping on different surfaces, dynamics of driving a golf ball and many more. It wasn't that he was expecting us to actually know and be tested on everything, he was always using us to check math for some of his hobbies and tests that was involved in. I later learned that teaching was his day job and he was involved in product testing and development.
One day he opened a box and pulled out a David White builder transit. With that he taught us practical use of trig.
When I found out you could make a living and be outside and do something besides follow a mule or be in cow and horse crap all day, I was in it for life.
Family business.
I did my summers as a pack mule, eventually working my way through all the other positions...line cutter, tail chainer, lead chainer, rod man, instrument man, and party chief.
Did land surveying during the early stages of my career (fresh out of the military). Then in 1989, somebody offered me a job doing nothing but construction staking, and it actually paid a lot more money, so I've never looked back.
Dad said, "Come on, get in the truck" or something similar. 1967
Next was "Hold this Here." Pretty soon it was "Keep us on line".
I actually decided to become a surveyor when I was 15. Last half of 68 to the first half of 69. I haven't looked back (very often) since.;-)
Dad Lied.
My entire family farms, period. Need to know something about farming, espcially cotton, ask me. Everybody in the family loves farming, if there was room for me to farm, I would be doing that. My uncle wanted to build a new house and needed about five acres cut out of the Sullivan place. Dad called the first suveryor, Mr B... it will be about a month before we can get out there; dad says, "the hell you say, go get in your pickup and drive out here". They recommened another surveyor who came out later that week.
Now, you have to get in the farmer mindset to understand. EVERYTHING is to expensive to a farmer. This surveyor, comes out for a nasty few days in Jan and gets the job done. Dad pays the bill when he is done. Two months later I am off to college and need something to study; dad starts in on surveying and how much that dang SOB of a surveyor charges. He said, "it wouldn't suprise me if he makes 200,000 a year".... That was it, dollar signs were twinkling in my eyes.
Ten years later, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I have two states under my belt and are aiming for 3 more. It actually suprises me how surveying and farming mesh really well.
In HS I was in the Structural Engineering major, and they had a required surveying class. Seemed interesting, and took the necessary two semesters. We did level runs around the school and topo surveys of a piece of Fort Greene Park, which had a nice gentle hillside, and is probably the most surveyed spot in the world (at least once a year since 1933 to date, so far as I know).
In freshman year college, I hit a wall with Calculus, so dropped out of the Civil Engineering major. Well, my Mom and Poppa told me "Son, you gotta earn some money, if you want to use the car To go riding next Sunday...."
Since I already knew all there was to know about land surveying, I answered an ad in the local paper and took an interview.
As an aside, memory is a funny thing.....I remember right now that I used to remember most of that interview, the room, the chair, the boss, the questions, etc., etc. Having not had occasion to recall it for several years now, I don't remember any of it now....:-(
Anyway, the next Monday, I showed up in my desert boots and brown socks, ready to survey a park......instead, we had to cut three or four miles of power line centerline through a swamp. That night was my introduction to work boots.
I am a second generation surveyor. Mine was at 12 and with the exception of two other jobs for less than 6 months, I've been doing it ever since. I had some pretty old hand party chiefs that never missed a chance to pick on the boss's kid. When I was 16 it got better cause I threatened to hit him in the head with the legs. When I was 18, it got a lot better cause I picked him up over my head and threw him in a Cherokee Rose Bush. I vowed if I ever trained anyone, I would be nicer. I've been able to keep that promise from 19 to present.
Every summer I would have had enough and it would come to blows between me and the chief. Every summer, I took an a$$whipping, until 1995. 🙂
Now this past summer, my son, 14, asked for a job. I didn't make him do it like my dad did me. He hung tough through the worst summer in 60 years! He was up on time, went to bed at 8 (cause he couldn't keep his eyes open) learned to run the gun and DC in a week and when my main Iman went down the 4th of July, he kept a second crew running (albeit slower, but running nonetheless). I gave the chief a nice bonus at the end of the summer for taking one for the team. My son says he'll be back next summer. He worked the winter break also.
Initiation, well, that was every day. The other chief way back when is also licensed now and we are great friends. He calls and we share info, ask questions, etc. He says he likes asking me questions cause I won't say whatever, I tell him what I think and he has to defend it. Sometimes he likes it, sometimes not. In any case, I'm proud to have had him as a mentor to be tough, my dad as a mentor to keep at it and go get that last deed, and a great surveyor friend in Nacogdoches, Texas to help shove stupid stuff down my throat when I would say or think something stupid.
Life is hard. It's even harder if you're stupid. It's even harder if you're stupid and don't learn from others. 🙂
As a Drexel CO-OP I was working for the National Park Service in Philadelphia in 1968. Mostly doing drafting and some simple calculations. I was asked if I would mind going out to one of the parks to help one of the Inspectors/Surveyors with a little topo job. Just a dumb college kid what did I know. Next day I find myself on a Trailways heading to the eastern shore of Maryland. Spent the next 4+ weeks as a rodman doing a topo for the Public Receation areas at the north end of Assategue Nat. Seashore. Up one sand dune down the other. The project was Four or five Five-hundred car parking lots for the weekend refugees from Washington and Baltimore.
We were provided with military grade bug repellent and we would walk into a local store for lunch and you could see the crowd just spread apart to let us in. Finished the survey and found myself riding back to Philly with a field book tucked into my bag. Learned to plot the topo shots and create the contour map.Despite the damn green head flies and mosquitoes (which you got depending on the direction of the wind)I figured that I liked this surveying thing.
Grew up on a farm, always wanted to farm, but between my dad and uncles there just wasn't enough extra to go around. Took a drafting class my senior year of high school (1976) and was pretty good at it, so that was my major heading to college. 3 hours a day sitting at a drafting table 3 days a week made me realize that was NOT what I wanted to do, but that beginning surveying class was interesting. Changed major to Ag engineering next semester, had a little more surveying, then got a summer job on a road construction survey crew with a neighbor as the party chief. Only went back to school the next spring semester for the second surveying class and a cartography class, that was it. Been at it ever since. Always say surveying found me, not the other way around.