Degree required?

[hellsangle]

For those states that require a four-year degree for licensure . . .

The young 'uns may be weighing the debt(s) for college? There's a bag o' snakes in the linked article.

https://apnews.com/article/skipping-col ... dium=email

Have a nice weekend . . .

Crazy Phil - Sonoma

[LS_8750]

Starving out the universities until they start providing a decent education again would not be a bad thing.

[DWoolley]

I quit reading when the man profiled in the article decided to be a thespian. Los Angeles is awashed with wannabe thespians waiting tables, turning tricks, whatever they can do to makes ends meet - $150k in unpaid student loans and a college degree wouldn't make any difference for the future of most of them.

STEM graduates make up 18% of all graduates. Arguably, the other 82% may be better off in the apprenticed trades and doing their painting, acting, singing, etc on the weekends rather than accruing the burden of the tuition debt. Community college night classes are available to satisfy any curiosities.

Necessarily, the cost of studying has to be viewed as an investment in a career that allows the loans to be paid back over time. The luxury of personal growth through the arts is no longer practical or affordable to most people. Education in the arts are reserved for the 1%.

I would not want my kids to sack their future with a degree in the lost languages of the Amazon, Russian literature during the Romanov period, or the history of the French horn - they're better off doing bong rips and ayahuasca while watching Ren and Stimpy reruns in the garage for four years. Then, getting a job with no concerns about student debt.

DWoolley

[hellsangle]

Agreed, Dave . . .

But my point is the problem with the states that require a four-year degree to sit for the Board exam.

The "successful" young folks are more likely going into computer or political (See Netflix: The Family) science, etc.

Stay dry . . . so far today's atmospheric river is fizzling.

Crazy Phil again

[DWoolley]

Phil:

Here is the rub, the states that require a four year degree do so with good reason. A Florida court determined land surveying was an occupation and not a profession because there was no four year education requirements. Specifically, as cited in another case:

"The Garden court defined the term professional in the statute of limitations as “any vocation requiring at a minimum a four-year college degree before licensing is possible in Florida.” 602 So.2d at 1275. Applying this definition to the limitations defense, the Court held that land surveyors were not professionals because it was possible to become a licensed surveyor without first obtaining a four-year degree but explicitly limited its holding:

“We limit the definition of ‘professional’ set forth above to the context of the professional malpractice statute. It is not our intent that this definition be applied to any other reference to ‘professionals' or ‘professions' elsewhere in the Florida statutes, regulations, or rules, or in court cases that deal with issues other than the statute of limitations at issue here. We recognize that there may be occasions when courts, legislators, rulemaking authorities, and others may use the terms ‘profession’ and ‘professional’ more broadly or more narrowly than we do here today.”

See Garden v. Frier, 602 So.2d 1273 (Fla.1992) for the ruling.

Taking it out to a reasoned conclusion, if land surveyors are not professionals they do not enjoy the benefits of qualification based selection, errors and omissions insurance and arguably, licensure serves only as a barrier to entry that should be remedied by deregulation. Alternatively, require a four year degree and realize the Nevada results of having licensed approximately 20 in-state licensees in the last 10 years.

I will offer some professional rain on this rainy day. Has anyone reviewed the Carpenters' union contract? Or the Laborers' union contract? In short, the contracts allows their respective trades to "survey" as we have known it. This means they have claimed the work as their own.

Carpenters section 103.2 "...This shall include all layout and shooting grades from initial control points and/or benchmark and use of all equipment incidental thereto, including use of transit, and "total station" equipment, survey instruments and other equipment....excluding initial survey and quality control related work." If a land surveyor provides the x, y, z control what prevents the carpenter from "layout"? Nothing. How much quality control work are land surveyors doing on these jobs? Almost zero.

Laborers' section (E) (1.) "...subsurface utility imaging services, operating of Trimble equipment, for locating, designating, depicting and mapping underground utilities and structures...". I have had onsite folks refer to "Trimbling", as a verb. Translated, we call it surveying.

International Union of Operating Engineers advocates land surveyors being classified as laborers and mechanics, not professionals (federally, land surveyors have been classified as professionals since 1962 - before several states had license requirements). IUOE, Local 12, dispatches their "surveyors" to the operators/contractors for a lesser hourly wage than to the signatory firms. IUOE wants to deregulate the land surveying profession - and they may well succeed - but, they cannot keep the other trade unions from claiming and performing land surveying. The knee-slapper is the land surveying community supports the IUOE through their silence. The public agencies support the deregulation by hiring signatory firms and not requiring credentials, therefore incentivizing the deregulation. IUOE is insignificant in comparison to the the Carpenters and Laborers - as demonstrated by their contract language claiming IUOE work. Their common ground is in the deregulation of the profession of land surveying.

We are paying into an organization or contracting with an organization that is bent on our own professional demise. Have we earned, through our passive silence and compliance, anything more than a merciful quick kill?

A four year degree allows us to be recognized as professionals. However, licensing 2 people a year on average in Nevada has likely sealed their professional fate through attrition. As the signatory firms expand and demand more dues paying workers - IUOE uses the money to push the deregulation of land surveying. This deregulation requires the cooperation, through contracts, of the public agencies that hire signatory/union firms. Lastly, Project Labor Agreements signed by public agencies do not apply to professionals, but who has stood up and proclaimed land surveyors are professionals and should not be explicitly called laborers in the PLAs?

Lastly, for the land surveyors that think they are unaffected because they do not provide construction related services. Think again, as the trades self-perform and the work becomes scarce for the engineering and surveying firms they will saturate the remaining boundary, topography, right of way work and drive down the prices as they struggle to survive. Think the work quality is bad now ( and it most certainly is) wait until we get some hunger behind it.

Who can see a path forward to a future? I am interested in folk's perspectives.

DWoolley

[hellsangle]

Lemme see . . .

So if you were king - you'd legislate a four year degree? Knowing what's happening in Nevada?!

[DWoolley]

Lemme see . . .

So if you were king - you'd legislate a four year degree? Knowing what's happening in Nevada?!

Nope, apparently I was not clear in my writing. A four year degree or no four year degree requirement, the fate of the professional land surveyor, by my estimation, is sealed. I will support anyone that wants to charge the hill or develops a plan to fight the adversaries. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't...

I will offer some green shoots. I am encouraged by two recent RFQs by public agencies that require LSIT credentials from their private contract field crew members. I have seen two other agencies exclude land surveyors from their Project Labor Agreements. I cannot overstate the importance of these steps towards the preservation of the profession.

I am beginning to embrace indifference towards the fate of the profession - a benefit of my age. I will catch the last train to Clarksville.

DWoolley

[LS_8750]

Nevada had this cockamamie law for a while that candidates for LS licensure needed a four year degree in "surveying". Here's an old post about it............. viewtopic.php?p=23200&hilit=nevada#p23200

Some time before early 2019 Nevada changed the law. I don't know how it reads but I got my LS there in 2019.

[DWoolley]

If my memory serves me correctly, Nevada required a degree after 2010. I believe the law passed in 1999-2000 - giving folks 10 years to test before the degree was required. I recall seeing a chart that showed a spike in testing in 2010.

DWoolley

[Edward M Reading]

Nevada is only one data point. There are many other states that require a degree.

[Chiara]

My personal path to licensure included a two-year degree earned at SRJC, classes at Sacramento City College, the Sacramento Chapter's review course, a number of mentors, and more or less two years of independent studies preparing for the exams. No four-year degree here, rather a lot of sticktoitiveness and encouragement. That said:

Professionals are generally regarded as highly educated. It's always struck me as funny that as a profession at large we abbreviate our title "PLS", emphasis on the "P". It's as if we're announcing to the world, "I'm a professional too!" Shouldn't it be self-evident? Our image, in the public perception of the hierarchy of what constitutes a professional, is not up there with the doctors and lawyers of the world. The public understands not all doctors and lawyers are created equal and the cheapest doctor or lawyer is not the best. One of the criteria the public use to judge the quality of a professional is the breadth of their education and the school they attended, and I can tell you after four years of family court I wouldn't go in with an un-educated attorney or hire the cheapest!

The perception is not the same with surveyors - often times the cheapest proposal is the proposal that gets the contract.

[David Kendall]

It's always struck me as funny that as a profession at large we abbreviate our title "PLS", emphasis on the "P". It's as if we're announcing to the world, "I'm a professional too!" Shouldn't it be self-evident?

I agree that the self proclamation as a professional is a joke. I never heard of a professional doctor or lawyer. Maybe because they have the PhD so they don’t worry about whether you believe they are professional or not, it goes without saying.

[DWoolley]

In a post above I explained the basis for the four-year requirement i.e. professional recognition, in a legal context, rather than trade status (opening, strike that, removing the door to deregulation). Anyone inclined can read the online CalSurveyor articles circa 1971-74 to realize this discussion has been around for a very long time. Anyone remember the voluntary continuing education program offered by CLSA to demonstrate our community’s willingness to receive and support ANY education? The thought was to voluntarily get folks to comply with continuing education so that CLSA could go to the Legislature to codify something most of us (in theory) were already doing. It was our Betamax or Ford Edsel moment. A lot of folks with good ideas and plenty of ambition have failed for over 50 years to establish any educational requirements. In California, in the land surveyor education context, nothing will happen in the next 50 years that hasn’t happened in the last 50 years. As a professional community, we are Randy Quaid’s character Cousin Eddie.

Clark Griswold “You have to pardon my cousin Eddie. His heart is bigger than his brain”.
Cousin Eddie “I appreciate that Clark”, beaming with pride.

As a collective, we are what we are, nothing more, nothing less. Know that I am no different. “We’re all mad here,” wrote Lewis Carroll.

Be clear, the land surveyor is a professional that should be, and historically has been, held in high regard. In many quarters this remains true, for now. We have done nothing; we will do nothing to safeguard our stature. Doubt me? Take a minute, re-read the covered work of a carpenter, a laborer, and the letter by IUOE that, in very explicit language, explains field surveyors are not professionals, subprofessionals or semiprofessionals – and do not exercise independent judgement. Did any signatory firms protest? Our professional fate, on one front, currently rests in the hands of the US Department of Labor as they consider the 45,000 letters written in support of land surveyors being forever classified as laborers and mechanics, tradesman, not professionals. Now I ask you, dear reader, what have you done? Do you not deserve whatever fate is bestowed upon you, Eddie? I am no fatalist or a cynic, but I firmly believe our professional destiny is sealed. We will accept the fate, like a low bid contract, without so much as a whimper or protest.

Land surveyor education, like most things we occupy ourselves with, is little more than idle chitchat. Sweet tea and porch talk. Like arguing sports stats, the greatest of championship teams or historic figures, war casualty numbers, state fish records, muscle car factory horsepower, all a ton of fun that bonded lifelong friendships, before Google ruined it.

Anyone care that a land surveyors work is being parsed out to the trades? if we passively accept others violating us, have we truly been violated? Die on our feet or die on our knees, dead is dead - dignity has not been our strong suit. New old idea, let's discuss things we'll never do, starting with education, technical standards, wrestling with the trade unions and compliance with the existing laws. Pass the sweet tea and enjoy the weather and present company.

DWoolley

[hellsangle]

Sounds fatalistic, Davey!

If there are 45,000 letters in support of we being laborers . . . do you think we could possibly muster more than that to the contrary?

If we were all choir boys?

[DWoolley]

I have attached the letter in which IUOE, Local 12, describes land surveyors as donkeys. The letter was successful in getting the professional status of land surveyors classified as laborer and mechanics. Imagine being a signatory firm, signatory to Local 3 or 12, and having them do this to your profession without consulting any land surveying firms. In fact, I had a letter from a land surveying representative organization, not CLSA, admonishing me in writing for protesting being reclassified as a laborer, specifically stating:

"Recently, it has come to our attention that several CLSA members are circulating a letter [attached] from an International Operating Engineers' attorney back in Washington D.C. where she advocates for field surveying to be covered under the federal Davis Bacon Act. This strictly deal with a limited area of federal prevailing wage law and has nothing whatsoever to do with...".

I was flatfooted until I realized they will never let the truth be a deterrent.

Read the attached letter for yourself. It is unflattering and untrue. These same admonishing land surveyors cursed me up one side and down the other for stopping their bill- after they called me to Sacramento for a meeting that turned out to be an ambush reminiscent to a scene from The Godfather. Fast forward 2-3 years later, these surveyors start another bill with IUOE (again) - offering every assurance they were good faith partners and that CLSA should play ball. IUOE, without consulting any of the land surveyors that crafted the bill, including CLSA, rewrote the bill in the backroom to deregulate large swathes of the PLSA and put it back out to the Legislature. At the 11th hour, their land surveying group, together with CLSA, was able to get the bill pulled. In the legislative circles, apparently it is embarrassing to have the author (legislator) pull their own bill that late in the game. Here is a lesson for all to remember forever, never, under any circumstances, ever open up the language of 8726. This single instant example is worth every members cost of CLSA dues for the balance of a land surveying career. Pay your dues today.

Suppose, as a Professional Land Surveyor, one of your employees wrote a letter to a valued client saying that your firm was incompetent, dishonest, etc and provided 15 pages of carefully crafted, but untrue, examples, would you give the employee a raise? Why not? IUOE told the US Department of Labor land surveyors are not professionals - therefore, not subject to QBS and as an occupation/trade, the licensure is little different than licensure of a barber or tree trimmer. The California law does not recognize any difference or distinguish a field surveyor from an office surveyor - there is only a land surveyor. In fact, the faux separation hurts the profession. I will not be surprised if I am admonished, labelled as "anti-union", they have only one playbook, but I am not anti-union. I simply believe they should serve the profession, not destroy it. I would support building a relevant JAC. However, I cannot stand idle or support anyone or anything that deregulates or denigrates the profession.

There was a video that accompanied their letter. The video was a demonstration of their explanation of the softheaded land surveyors. Unfortunately, the video is no longer available. It was akin to a Monty Python skit portraying land surveyors as dolts. Visualize a 10 person crew of survey donks wandering around on a construction site, bumping into each other, wildly swinging sledge hammers, loading up faux heavy instruments, grunt speaking. If only they could have had helmets with a single horn in the front. Think Ringo Starr in Caveman.

Pending Senate confirmation, the incoming Secretary of Labor, currently the Acting Secretary, in my opinion, is unlikely to recognize us a professionals.

Phil, do you think the US DOL counts the letters, possibly weighs them, to make determinations? Restated, if there were 45,001 letters on the other side, we win? I appreciate that, Clark.

One more example of land surveyors not being their best, we have CLSA members that vehemently opposed CLSA joining with NSPS. California spawned the reclassification from professional to laborers and yet, we left NSPS to work for 8 years without our support to right the wrong. I ask again, if we allow ourselves to be violated, is it actually a violation? Do we not deserve whichever outcome is chosen for the profession?

DWoolley

[Warren Smith]

Strength in numbers.
We will always grow our own - the best will stumble into this noble calling. It can be accommodated, but doesn't need to be strong armed as much as expanding opportunity and removing barriers.
That is what Nevada surveyors are pushing back on to provide for.proper regulation, not succumbing to outside pressure.

[CBarrett]

Strength in numbers.
We will always grow our own - the best will stumble into this noble calling. It can be accommodated, but doesn't need to be strong armed as much as expanding opportunity and removing barriers.
That is what Nevada surveyors are pushing back on to provide for.proper regulation, not succumbing to outside pressure.

We can get people into colleges without making it a requirement, just takes having and showing the more opportune path.
If that path doesn't exist, then legislating the requirement can become a good path to extinction. It's not like we have so many prospects beating down our doors that we need to raise the entry point. We need to be well on our way to that point, before any proposed legislation kicks in.

[Mike Mueller]

I have to hand it to the lawyer writing that letter for IUOE, she did a good job. If all a "Field Surveyor" did was construction staking (as it basically asserts in the letter) then I would have a real hard time disagreeing with her.

I am not as versed on this subject as others, so I was wondering if topographic mapping and boundary surveys are considered to be "preliminary work" and is it reflected differently in the prevailing wage situations? Or is it just the title of the person?

Regarding the OP
Considering that most folks I personally know have come to surveying tangentially through life's turns, I am in agreement with Warren that its more about keeping avenues open for good people to come into the profession through several paths, IE 4 year, JC, no school, 2nd career, or whatever. Its not as important where or when you read the right books, as how you think about them and how they are discussed/debated to help grow understanding beyond memorization.

Mikey Mueller, PLS 9076
Sonoma County

[CBarrett]

I am not as versed on this subject as others, so I was wondering if topographic mapping and boundary surveys are considered to be "preliminary work" and is it reflected differently in the prevailing wage situations? Or is it just the title of the person?

I've worked with union crews most of my 'survey life', and had to heavily depend on them to collect data needed for boundary retracements. It is definitely a different dynamic from when the PLS is out in the field doing their own boundary. Very few decisions happen on the fly, everything is pre-calced and specific procedures outlined on survey request forms. Then you talk to your party chief at the beginning, Explain everything, and there are usually many phone calls during the day that go like this "I found ABC, not D and E, should I go for F, or G, or skip..."
Then you ask them a millions questions about the conditions out there, ground conditions, monument conditions, lines of occupation, types of monuments they are finding, sometimes, in more recent years I will even facetime with the crews so I can see what is out there, to help me make those decisions.

Other times, if the site is convenient enough, I just tell them pick up everything you see, including curb ties - then I review and make sense out of everything in the office. I always require two sets of photos - closeup so I can check monument descriptions and type, and vicinity where I can asses surroundings and occupation (in addition to collected topo).

Area where you don't have to do as much handholding is understanding instrumentation and making sure they are using proper procedures to get you needed precision and enough redundancy to quantify accuracy. (we tend to post process and least squares adjust everything), but there's been times when that needed some hand holding too, especially on grid/ground projects and less experienced chiefs. That's the average dynamic. Individual mileage always varies.

Main goal is to make most of the decisions in the office by the LS. Even at the LS rates, your union crew time is still more expensive, so you want to keep the production going.

Prevailing wage is per project contract, not per person's title. Prevailing wage project contracts usually have you outline which staff is going to be on project, and in what capacity. If that needs to change, you have to go through additional approval process, If I remember right this is for government contract legal compliance. I have a number of projects where I can't just move staff around without checking their contract role and having to keep to those parameters, or my invoices will not get approved by the client.

[Jim Frame]

you talk to your party chief at the beginning, Explain everything, and there are usually many phone calls during the day that go like this "I found ABC, not D and E, should I go for F, or G, or skip..." Then you ask them a millions questions about the conditions out there, ground conditions, monument conditions, lines of occupation, types of monuments they are finding

I accept that the described process is a necessary evil in some business models, but I believe you get consistently better results when the person making the decisions is the same person digging the hole.

[Peter Ehlert]

you talk to your party chief at the beginning, Explain everything, and there are usually many phone calls during the day that go like this "I found ABC, not D and E, should I go for F, or G, or skip..." Then you ask them a millions questions about the conditions out there, ground conditions, monument conditions, lines of occupation, types of monuments they are finding

I accept that the described process is a necessary evil in some business models, but I believe you get consistently better results when the person making the decisions is the same person digging the hole.

I strongly agree Jim.

or at a Bare Minimum in many/most cases Visit The Site

[CBarrett]

you talk to your party chief at the beginning, Explain everything, and there are usually many phone calls during the day that go like this "I found ABC, not D and E, should I go for F, or G, or skip..." Then you ask them a millions questions about the conditions out there, ground conditions, monument conditions, lines of occupation, types of monuments they are finding

I accept that the described process is a necessary evil in some business models, but I believe you get consistently better results when the person making the decisions is the same person digging the hole.

It depends. I would prefer to be in the field making those decisions myself, alas, years in the office have now taken toll on my field efficiency. I still sneak out on weekends to recon the site.
There's always some sort of a tradeoff.

Of course, it's always nice, quality wise, when the resident expert does all the tasks. Personally, I had 5 boundaries being field surveyed this week, most requiring about 3 days in the field, just for boundary. Each one has additional components, like control, aerial targeting, lidar scans, conventional topo infills.

Large projects are often too much for one or two surveyors, it takes a team to get them done. That means dividing work tasks and approaching things in a more of a production line manner.

[CBarrett]

you talk to your party chief at the beginning, Explain everything, and there are usually many phone calls during the day that go like this "I found ABC, not D and E, should I go for F, or G, or skip..." Then you ask them a millions questions about the conditions out there, ground conditions, monument conditions, lines of occupation, types of monuments they are finding

I accept that the described process is a necessary evil in some business models, but I believe you get consistently better results when the person making the decisions is the same person digging the hole.

I strongly agree Jim.

or at a Bare Minimum in many/most cases Visit The Site

Which LS would you want to see visit the site, department manager who signs for everything, the project manager who has financial, staffing and coordination and office technical responsibility, or my LS party chief with boots on the ground with field technical responsibility, or his LS field supervisor? You dont get the budget for every single team member who may touch the project spending half a day to a day doing boundary recon.

These are not sole proprietor four corner projects where recon takes an hour.

[ekparian]

I would say the LS who signs the map.
I just surveyed a property (2 months ago) that was surveyed in the 1950's +/_. The 1950's map set corners.
An engineering firm surveyed the property next door and created a tract map around 2010 and they set the property corners.
Low and behold I found 2 sets of corners (those from the 1950's and those from 2010's) about 8 feet apart along the common property line.
The engineering firm essentially created a gap, not overlap so the tract lot owner was not trying to claim my clients land but was shorted in thier land. Obviously the original corners hold.
This caused me to expand my survey to gather more evidence and required me to file a Record of survey rather than a corner record. When i expanded my survey i found cal trans right of way corners and also more corners set by that firm also about 8 feet apart from the cal trans corners they set along the freeway. Cal trans set thier corners around 2000. I informed my client which corners were the corners to honor and reached out to the engineer in responsible charge (who signed the map) of my findings and sent him a copy of my record of survey.
His firm was a big firm which was bought out by a bigger firm. They both are/were firms who have an engineering staff, surveyor staff, project managers, planners, hr department etc. Both firms are/were union. He went to work for that bigger firm as a project manager. He said he would look into it and I haven't heard anything further.
All of the Lots have sold a few years ago and now there is a mess. Hopefully his firm is dealing with the issue they created. Doing big projects with teams working still requires everyone's due diligence. Some of the boundary sheets on big tract maps are awful. Many don't mention tag numbers or if they even searched for the corners before setting new ones.Regardless of how many people work on the project there is still an obligation to get it correct and the signatory person is still responsible.

[Jim Frame]

These are not sole proprietor four corner projects where recon takes an hour.

I do some of those, like the one I described in another thread. But even though I'm a 1-man shop, I'll also do much larger projects and then hand the boundary off to the engineering/planning teams.

The largest was a couple of years ago, a 17,000-acre ranch with about 60 controlling monuments. I did have help on that one -- a guy from another firm (my client) who did some digging and made some redundant ties -- but I did all the research, personally tied every one of the controlling monuments, processed the data, put together the boundary, drafted and signed the ROS. The highlight of the job was one hot summer afternoon when I had chopped my way through about 200' of tuies trying to reach a section corner and realized that the water was too deep to proceed. While standing there pondering my next move, a river otter popped his head up about four feet in front of me and just stared. By the time I got my phone out for a photo he had disappeared. The next day I kayaked across a canal and was able to reach the corner from the other direction. It was a fun job.