California Surveyors Forums

Teachers?

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED453591

Sorry, what I actually meant was: what "profession" relies solely on mentoring with no higher education base?

Hookers?

Ed,

There is actually a path to practicing law through mentorship rather than education. It's called the Law Office Study Program.

An FAQ is here https://esqapprentice.org/frequently-asked-questions

And, of course, there is the ministry.

Dudeism information and ordination is available at: https://dudeism.com/

:)

Good stuff all!

OK, so are you all defending the mentorship-only route over an education plus mentorship route?

Hi Ed,

I am trying to stick with the forum topic. You should start a new topic to focus the discussion.

Be well.

Ed:

I have a lot I could write on the topic of education in land surveying, but respect your lack of an affinity for words. I think our profession would do better to recruit an educated class - educated in most anything - to be future professionals. The future of the profession is jeopardized partially as a result of having folks working for 5, 10, 15 years and they cannot be bothered with an LSIT. The LSIT is the hurdle, pass it and the LS license is comparatively easy. If we hire someone with an education and give them a test schedule as a condition of employment there is little question they would test. There is room for folks to follow the path of being self-taught and mentored into licensure. The education familiarizes them with testing requirements as part of their life.

I believe we have to recruit these educated folks and train them from scratch. No LSIT within 3 to 5 years, no job. No credential, no work.

It would kill the profession quickly if the legislature required a four year degree. Nevada instituted a four year degree in 1999, effective in 2010, and they average 3.2 new licensees per year for total of 32 in the last ten years. I believe 50% of their current licensees will be retired or dead in the next ten years. Their extinction is nearly certain unless they purge the weak minded or lazy, recruit afresh and test starting today. No credential, no work. It is a matter of professional survival.

DWoolley

Raising professionalism and nurturing more professional qualities will require a coordinated research, planning and implementation plan and it will take a number of years to slowly move that mountain. Right now, we are somewhat hap-hazard in our approach and stuck on a tactic which has been tried in the past and had brought little success.

Same with being more proactive when it comes to capturing the emerging technologies markets.

In short, We need a paradigm shift on many levels. There is a long version too I have in my back pocket, if anyone wishes to discuss professionalism in a different thread.

CBarrett, please consider opening a new thread!

Dare I suggest that I see a message here?

DWoolley wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 6:23 am

It would kill the profession quickly if the legislature required a four year degree. It is a matter of professional survival.

DWoolley

Dave,
It is my opinion that the profession is killing itself for a number of reasons. In my opinion, the number one factor is robotic instruments, so there is no mentoring of the younger generation to train and educate in a real world situation. The larger firms that use union field crews have programs, and I am not involved anymore, so I do not know their stance. Unfortunately some field crew members only see it as a job, not a profession, and do not want to promote upward in life. Book smart only (minimal field experience) isn't always beneficial to the profession.

Educate you say? Yes an education is beneficial and the profession hasn't done enough to get the word out and promote the profession. We have one of the few 4-year ABET approved surveying "Geomatics" programs in CA at CSU Fresno, and if the profession doesn't get on the boat to support the program, that too will be gone before you know it. A four year degree enables all to truly understand how to "Follow the Footsteps of the Original Surveyor". I know a number of surveyors who do not have a surveying education and are very good surveyors. I have also seen some who don't have a formal education and think since they have a license, they can do what they want when it comes to mapping, both submitting and reviewing.
This does not benefit and promote the profession one bit. Nor does legislation to force mathematics and accuracies onto mapping promote the profession, and only drives some licensed, further away from the profession. With my education, I could have taken three additional mathematics courses, and obtained a "Minor in Mathematics", but didn't. Maybe if I did, I'd be on board for this accuracies statement on maps, lol.

Maybe all we need is enforcement of LS Act?

LS_8750 wrote: Fri Jan 07, 2022 11:40 am Maybe all we need is enforcement of LS Act?

+1

Yes indeed!

More enforcement, while a good idea, is a lot like a solution of, more policing will result in less crime. Temporarily yes, but this also needs more mid and long term measures, like looking upstream and figuring out how to produce fewer 'criminals'.
These concepts too are described in more modern leadership literature, which no-one wants to read.

Concept of upstream thinking has to do with part of the solution being reducing problems before they even happen.
an example:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/upstream ... -andresen/

I see in here we are looking to find a simple solution to a complex problem, while we are saying, oh, we don't need any HR or management or social or leadership etc. training. I just need to be a great technician. That's not enough at the level of trying to influence or steer a profession or a professional organization. Even to be an active participant (ethically) one has a duty to to the profession to educate themselves in how forces at play work together.

Finding 6 or 22 people to agree with us doesn't mean that we are right. In the current situation, collective climate in the profession is what lead to it, so if we poll the profession, statistically we are most likely to get a result that leads us in a wrong direction.

Lets make a list of issues, prioritize them, investigate what lead to them, and see what kind of improvements can be made, short, mid and long term, and at what intervals those efforts are to be evaluated for results (so course can be adjusted as needed).

This, sort of leads us into a topic of a business plan. These kinds of exercises are part of writing a business plan (or a part of it). Why - because, to put it simple, a lot of business savvy people realized that questions like these have a number of underlying complexities which need to be considered.

CBarrett wrote: Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:40 pmMore enforcement, while a good idea, is a lot like a solution of, more policing will result in less crime. Temporarily yes, but this also needs more mid and long term measures, like looking upstream and figuring out how to produce fewer 'criminals'.

I see in here we are looking to find a simple solution to a complex problem, while we are saying, oh, we don't need any HR or management or social or leadership etc. training. I just need to be a great technician. That's not enough at the level of trying to influence or steer a profession or a professional organization. Even to be an active participant (ethically) one has a duty to to the profession to educate themselves in how forces at play work together.

Amen

Enjoy.

Michael,

Thanks for that - some things never change ...

mpallamary wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 7:29 pmEnjoy.

That is a thing of beauty!

American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has issued their proposed standards 38 and 75. ASCE 38 is "Standard Guideline for Investigating and Documenting Existing Utilities and ASCE 75 "Standard Guideline for Recording and Exchanging Utility Infrastructure Data".

ASCE 75, Section 2.3 Positional Accuracy, Table 2-1, sets the positional accuracy levels for location of utilities and states "If the Positional Accuracy cannot be certified or is not available, the Positional Accuracy shall be reported as Indeterminate". These standards will be required to be applied to all projects. This is a hand in glove to California SB865 requirements that utilities be plotted in GIS.

The work is high liability work which means high fees to balance the liability. Our community in California could harness and manage this workflow - if, big IF, we could educate ourselves on the mechanics and provide guidance to the service providers and GIS managers. We missed the GIS boat in the middle to late nineties and as a result we have seen our field personnel numbers reduced by approximately 75% in the construction centric firms.

I said earlier, if the surveyor is 55-65 they most likely do not have a vested interest in the longevity of the profession. For the younger folks, what do you see yourself doing in 20 years? Topographic mapping? Nope, Google Earth isn't a survey product. I recently captured free LiDAR data of 1.5 miles of road -this will only expand and ace out the surveyors. Construction staking? Nope, contractors will expand their self performing practice. We need a evergreen fountain of work. I believe this would be a natural transition. Unlicensed field people are the tradesman version of the Tasmanian tiger - extinct since the 1930s. No license, no job.

As a community, we can no longer fake our technical prowess - everyone needs to understand measurement, epochs, datums, statistical analysis, documentation and documentation control etc. Examples? How many surveyors sign contracts that state work will be within 0.01' tolerance? How many of us use an RTN system to survey an ALTA boundary and sign the accuracy certification? This is intellectual and actual fraud.

I have listened to three utility locators tell a group of peers their GPS is sub-centimeter and they are preparing to comply with SB865. There are legions of these folks compared to land surveyors. Who is going to protect your profession? BPELSG? Pffft, not their job - they protect the public from you. They have little or no jurisdiction, lack the tools and authority to chase unlicensed practitioners. For example, Kiewit self-performed approximately $10 million in land surveying work on the 405 freeway and BPELSG fined them the maximum, two $5,000 fines. This is zero deterrent to continue their surveying practices. Who thinks they will be surveying for Kiewit on a big construction project? Cutting surveying cost and self performing is a necessity for contractors to compete on their low-bid projects. Trimble, Leica, Topcon all make and market equipment to unlicensed folks. Who thinks that will change?

If you are a surveyor, not a principle, in an engineering company, how secure do you think your future is there? Land surveying does not fit the engineering model unless the engineering company is in residential and commercial development (subject to wild swings in the economy). Don't believe me? Ask some of the senior staff how many surveyors they had in 1990. They will tell you they had about 3-4x in the survey department. Those development companies are running out of development space, hence SB9 and SB10. Backyard and redevelopment doesn't require much land surveying. There is a reason AECOM, Fluor, HDR - all the big engineering companies - do not have land surveying in-house. Why? It does not make business sense, especially in California. What 40 something engineer would buy into the unfunded pension liability of a signatory engineering company? There are not enough engineer suckers willing to make those deals.

On topic, there is a Ten Minute Surveyor video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ5QBDy7Db8 and the Episode 8 update https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RsinxY2pBM&t=20s

I welcome opposing perspectives. Especially interested in what the 45 years old and younger think they will be doing in 20 years.

DWoolley

mpallamary wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 7:29 pmEnjoy.

The appended editor's comment is the highlight for me although I am unfamiliar with the term "geometry of instruments".

Can someone explain this for me?

"Understanding measurement requires understanding measurement theory, error sources, the geometry of instruments, and knowing how to analyze data."

In other words, documenting with accuracy the as-built world.
Putting on the 3D scanner goggles and taking a walk around documenting utility locations against other improvements, boundary and easement lines.
It's pretty Buck Rogers to think about.
All legal stuff.
I don't see the death of land surveying.
The younger ones coming up are excited, which is encouraging.

David Kendall wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 9:13 am

mpallamary wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 7:29 pmEnjoy.

The appended editor's comment is the highlight for me although I am unfamiliar with the term "geometry of instruments".

Can someone explain this for me?

"Understanding measurement requires understanding measurement theory, error sources, the geometry of instruments, and knowing how to analyze data."

This is a sampling of what I was taught being the instrument geometry:
As in total station works tiny bit differently from a level (no vertical angle readings), how precise are the optics and readings on your instrument, are you using a right angle prism or a TS to turn 90, catenary sag and temperature and tension corrections for tapes, satellite geometry in GPS, is your gun out of calibration, and instrument and rod heights, and how precise is your rod bubble (20sec? 40sec?) are you setting it on a tripod, are you using a peanut (And no rod), what is affecting your GPS DOP, are you collecting static gps, what time intervals, are you taking two measurements per day in fast static... does your prism or gps antenna have eccentricity... does your apprentice know how to hold zero?
yes, some of this is overlapping with procedures and error theory...

as an aside, I know he didn't write the article in question, but considering he is frequently quoted I find Curtis Brown's terminology having roots in old european schools of thought regarding surveying. This tends to work well for me personally, because that is the material that was taught when I was in school.