California Surveyors Forums

What if we offered a 'vanity' survey monument to homeowners? Little bit like a Vanity license plate.

I bet if that was the case, monument preservation efforts would suddenly gain in popularity.

People spend tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on their house exteriors. Why not pay extra 500 bucks and have fancier, maybe brass caps or something on their PL corners.

Make surveying more visible, make people care about the monuments (since they are supposed to by law anyway).

Kind of like this?

Yep!
Something that could expose surveying more, and signal to homeowners the 'pride of ownership' extends to monument preservation.

Sell them on the fact that good boundary monumentation is a status symbol. Obviously, I am in OC, where there are a lot of people who will shell out good money for status symbols.

I have no idea if that would actually work or catch on... Might be worth exploring the idea for a bit.

Disney brands their monuments, I just read that Elon Musk started branded his property monuments, Caltrans is doing it, County surveyors, BLM (I know those are more of a necessity), I also read articles about certain areas in Japan, and few places in Europe, where they are setting survey monuments which also serve a bit of a decorative function. Usually via plates in a sidewalk. I mean, around here, concrete contractors would cement a brass plate of their company logo into a sidewalk, or stamp it.

If you upsell it to the homeowner as an aesthetic thing, then you are not even out of pocket for doing the extra work. Same people who complain about $2000 boundary survey are probably going to spend another $15,000 or more on yard decorations, which may be why they need boundary survey to start with. They just never count on surveying, till someone tells them it has to be done, then budget is a problem.

Anyhow, just thinking out loud.

CBarrett:

I sincerely appreciate your thoughtful ideas i.e. monuments, leadership academy, local chapter organization, etc.

As a map checker, have you ever asked a land surveyor to set monuments or to tag existing monuments? How does that usually work out? I recently asked a surveyor if he was going to set the monuments or bond for them on a parcel map. His reply, "neither". He would rather tell me he wasn't going to set monuments than tell a client he had to set monuments. That's not my worst story concerning the setting of monuments in the month. From my seat, it is a mag nail and scribed crossed world, and the surveyor thinking "feet don't fail me now!".

DWoolley

DWoolley wrote: Tue Jun 13, 2023 11:14 am CBarrett:

I sincerely appreciate your thoughtful ideas i.e. monuments, leadership academy, local chapter organization, etc.

As a map checker, have you ever asked a land surveyor to set monuments or to tag existing monuments? How does that usually work out? I recently asked a surveyor if he was going to set the monuments or bond for them on a parcel map. His reply, "neither". He would rather tell me he wasn't going to set monuments than tell a client he had to set monuments. That's not my worst story concerning the setting of monuments in the month. From my seat, it is a mag nail and scribed crossed world, and the surveyor thinking "feet don't fail me now!".

DWoolley

That's a common occurrence. Lot of people need to be educated as we go. Almost every mapcheck involves a degree of handholding.

But, just because we have underperformers, it doesn't mean we should not look into raising the bar in a number of other avenues. There are many ways to raise the bar, and possibly the best way to raise it by a number of efforts. You are very involved in legislation efforts, which is wonderful, and critically necessary.

At the same time, we can start raising the bar elsewhere. Some of our lower performers use "no one else is doing it" as a lame excuse attempt. If that excuse is not on their head, or there are fewer examples of "no one else is doing it" maybe a few will actually think before pushing against the minimum (the law).

I know, number of our surveyors have no clue how to sell this to the client... this is why we are developing leadership academy and the technology committee and few other efforts beyond california, to give our people more resources to, well, get more educated and courageous with business negotiations.

Raising the levels of professionalism is a group marathon, and not likely to cross all the mileage in a linear fashion, we'll probably cover 80 miles of territory to move forward 20 or so miles.

Some people will set fancy monuments and take pride in what they do, others will always walk near the bottom line, till eventually they step over the line (may take more then once before they are caught) and filter themselves out.

I heard a staggering statistic the other day, it pointed out that over 50% of murders go unsolved. This is a serious offense that majority of population will condemn - and still they happen and 50% goes unsolved. Now, transpose that into a smaller, much smaller offense, like a civil infraction of some white collar law. I am willing to bet that everyone practicing surveying has a few violations along the way, which they either corrected quickly enough, or it just never surfaced. I'm not saying this to excuse them, what I am trying to say is that these things happen in large volumes and they will keep happening, and we raise the bar with lws, and they will keep happening... they are always going to be part of the soup... because ... people, human nature.

To address overall condition, we have a cultural problem - when I see people saying "the law says I don't have to"... that is just one step away from a civil infraction... or sometimes people will call it criminal. How did we get to that point, where we can, while carrying a title of a professional, say "The law can't make me go higher" - Corollary to that being, if the law didn't exist they would go lower.

As much as I hate seeing deregulation happen, if so many PLS's are so insistent in racing to the bottom, maybe deregulation is deserved. Maybe walking to close to the trade levels has been a bad move way back when, and now we are paying the price. Educated (not just school, but whomever has the ability) will stay ahead. Those who don't want to, How do you save people from themselves? You really can't.

However, I am hopeful. Other than many shitty maps I see, I see good ones too, I also see surveyors who are pulling forward. I would like to give those efforts more spotlight.

Ok, I have to cut this short, I have a meeting coming up, I will try to add more thoughts later. Overall, I think it will take a multitude of efforts to make changes. We are all on the same/similar path with those efforts.

They see me rollin'
They hatin'
Patrollin' and tryna catch me ridin' dirty
Tryna catch me ridin' dirty

Sincerely, John Benson

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benson_Syndicate

An apple and tree thing?

DWoolley

1900's saw Bensen, today we have Crownholm.

DWoolley wrote: Tue Jun 13, 2023 1:20 pm They see me rollin'
They hatin'
Patrollin' and tryna catch me ridin' dirty
Tryna catch me ridin' dirty

Sincerely, John Benson

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benson_Syndicate

An apple and tree thing?

DWoolley

It makes my head hurt, just how resistant our people are to learn about business, and how eager they are to stay inside the box.

I was contemplating responses in that other survey group, people will pass up on millions and millions of dollars of business, and capture $250,000-$400,000 and think they are a snazzy business owner who has it all figured out.

Where I work, our company, 50 surveyors and staff in California, you burn through a million dollars in a month or two to keep everyone employed, insured, benefits paid etc... Caltrans, 20 times that amount, I forgot how many surveyors they employ, several hundreds, I think I heard a number 600 state wide (I may have not remembered that right).

And we look to micro business owners to drive our legislation... These are two separate and conflicting interests. Maybe our legislation needs to address these conditions, so that we are not constantly limiting one another.

Maybe "Boundary surveyor" should be a sub part of geodetic engineer license, instead of boundaries being paramount. Boundaries are just one part of surveying.

Other professions and industries have resorted to specialized licenses as business endeavors got more complicated. California medical board has specialties. Engineering is already split into mechanical, industrial, structural, civil. Civil is starting to split into transportation, land development and water. California BAR has specialty certifications.

When you are talking about doing away with the old yeller, I start thinking about adding specialties. Do away with one license to rule them all. I mean, GIS people have already started seeking prestige of their own certification, GISP... and you have to invest several thousand dollars to get it.

Part of separating PE's and PLS's was recognizing that professional landscape has gotten more complex, and forked.

They were smart in diffusing the opposition, and allowed those who already have a license to ride it out (pre 82 engineers).

We are thinking too narrowly.

https://hexagon.com/resources/resource- ... -right-now

Digitizing of everything, everywhere, all at once.
Surveyors are supposed to be experts in measuring. Now it is being called digitizing.
We are all sitting and going, oh, ok, it's not surveying, it is digitizing, metrology, it must be different. They are no longer pulling chain on the ground to make paper product.

Remember American Congress on Surveying and Mapping? ASPRS used to be a sub-component. We gave up mapping, and got relegated to mapping boundary surveys, for few more minutes, till more laws change. Just wait when all the boundary laws are fed into AI along with your field findings, and a computer does evidence hierarchy evaluation for you - it is all programmable. (I've already experimented with it)

Soon, we will be able to mass produce legal boundaries, and field data collection of this evidence will become a minimum wage labor.

Vanity monument request denied. Once a monument is set and the paper work is duly completed, the monument becomes the property of the public not the land owner(s). (Says the guy that once built a rock mound that rivalled the great pyramids....)

George Marchenko

[Indulge me whilst I spin this yarn]

"Benson is a huge bulk of a man, genial, jovial, slouchy, and unpretentious, a man who wears a $100 suit as if it were a $10 "hand-me down." He is always good natured, quick to make friends, ready to lend that last cent he has in his pocket to any friend who appeals for help, but never willing to pay for an honest debt until he has exhausted all means of avoiding it, and not even willing under compulsion. He will lend his creditor anything, but never pay until forced. " New York Times, September 8, 1907.

Benson was paid $8.33M in 2023 dollars for his surveys. He employed hundreds of people. [Pause for a moment to think of the nepotism in the land surveying industry – it was more than sure to have been the same 100 years ago. We are equally sure to have communities directly connected to nearly every one of those in Benson's employ]. The center of the bullseye for a two monument tango is…[I want to leave something to the reader's imagination, hint, rhymes with Smeast Smay]. Think of the worst practitioner in your local area, presuming it isn't you, and now remember their professional spawn from that firm. Again, the apple and tree thing. Equally, I have practiced in several jurisdictions and found pockets, viewed as a whole, of highly competent community practice - similarly, their linage could be traced back generations. [Shout out to the practice I encountered in Humboldt County].

Benson was busted by the GLO because his surveys were "to perfect". In closing out his townships he did not have fractional sections – he had 80 chains on closing lines to the north and the west. It turns out, Benson was a perfectionist. His maps were "the best they had ever seen" in the GLO. Fast forward 130 years to 2023, record boundaries? "Measured and record" between monuments? Hauntingly familiar.

When it started getting hot in the legal kitchen, Benson, being a surveyor, did what surveyors do – feet don't fail me now! He fled to Europe with his ill-gotten gains. That should have been the end of the story, but he got into a fist fight with a Dutch sailor, his sordid past was discovered, and he was shipped back to Smeast Smay. He went on to partner with an attorney and began another form of land fraud.

Benson's surveys were discovered in the late 1880s. Not by coincidence, licensure as a land surveyor was required in 1891 – a full 40 years before engineers. A common refrain in our community is "we are licensed to protect the public". This "licensed to protect the public" is often cited in the context of cutting cost, not fulfilling legal obligations i.e. to protect the public from burdensome regulations. In actuality, the licensure is to protect the public from the land surveyor. The license is intended to determine competency in land surveying, business principles, ethics and other minimums to keep the land surveyor from damaging the public.

Arguably, when viewed in its entirety, licensure hasn't worked as designed over the last 130 years. "Blasphemy!" the land surveyors' exclaim?! In the simplest form, how many land surveying documents are routinely circulated without a signature and seal? Business and Professions Code 8761. Have you ever asked a land surveyor to tag a monument accepted as control? Do you realize many, maybe most, land surveyors collect coordinates and do not run adjustments on their measurements? When asked which feature is the best predictor of a good surveyor, my first thought is swift of foot.

That ol' rabid yella dog…son, get my hammer.

Here ends my yarn,

DWoolley

marchenko wrote: Wed Jun 14, 2023 1:51 pm Vanity monument request denied. Once a monument is set and the paper work is duly completed, the monument becomes the property of the public not the land owner(s). (Says the guy that once built a rock mound that rivalled the great pyramids....)

George Marchenko

Then someone has to pull up all the branded monuments, Disney, Caltrans, County surveyors, BLM's and have PLS numbers only :P

I think I will order a few brass caps that have this on them :p Maybe trademark them ;)

DWoolley wrote: Wed Jun 14, 2023 5:33 pm [Indulge me whilst I spin this yarn]
....

That's a good story!!!

That makes me think the fees our board charges need to be quadruples at the low end and then make them scalable, based on the offender, ahem, ability to pay. If a $4000 is likely to hurt a sole proprietor surveyor or an employee, maybe $40 milion will send a message to the big contractors.

We could use some cash for our causes anyway.

DWoolley wrote: Wed Jun 14, 2023 5:33 pm ...
That ol' rabid yella dog…son, get my hammer.
...
DWoolley

Technically, in the movie, Ol' Yeller didn't have rabies, by name, they called it hydrophobie [hydrophobia].

DWoolley

Stewing on the Benson legacy. We are little more than three generations, 120-130 years, from his direct professional descendants and mentored business practices (consider failure to file and the various regional private record collections from the 1940s forward).

There is a likely regional corollary between the Benson land surveying practices then and now. Traceable descendants like Vincent Mangano through to Domenico Cefalù for the Gambinos.

DWoolley

Do you really want to lead this discussion into organized and not so organized crime in construction industry?
Considering that this is all in writing ;)

CBarrett wrote: Thu Jun 15, 2023 1:43 pm Do you really want to lead this discussion into organized and not so organized crime in construction industry?
Considering that this is all in writing ;)

“Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis (1914).

Benson's crimes are a matter of record.

Readers may prefer the linage from President Wilson to Biden or Henry Ford to Jim Farley.

DWoolley

To your point Dave, anecdotally it seems that there were a handful of folks in each area that were in practice circa 1940-1950 when the profession boomed and maps and work skyrocketed, and most local surveyors are descended from from these handful of surveyors. Many in Sonoma County today were trained by guys who got their start with Richard Hogan LS 2798, who started up in 1954. He learned a lot from George Abbott, who was a mentor to many in the area between 1930-1960

I have often wanted to create a "family tree" style of map showing where each license in my area spent their first 5ish years. Not so say there isn't some plasmid exchange going on (To extend the family tree metaphor a little to far prolly) that allows for deviation from original training, but the initial creation of beliefs in the human mind is rarely changed by evidence.

Dave: You ever read Savage Sam? Seemed a pretty big change in the story and was a big disappointment for me after Old Yeller.

Thanks for the story on Benson.

Mikey Mueller, PLS 9076
Sonoma County