PLSO Oregon Surveyor Vol. 40 No. 6

20 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 40, No. 6 CTEC Leadership, Law Enforcement, Culinary Arts & Management and Agriscience. A highlight of the Residential Construction program is its seniors build a house from foundation to final paint, which is then sold to fund the following year’s house build. One of CTEC’s goals is to provide “career-related” education allowing students to gain real-world experience. English and math courses are woven into CTEC’s technical pro- grams giving students valuable perspective and application. needs of the students served by the center.” CTEC creates a central location for students to take coursework which might be “too expen- sive or too specialized for individual schools to operate.” CTECofficially opened in2015with twoprograms: Residential Construction, and Manufacturing, Welding & Engineering. Since then, CTEC has added Cosmetology, Video&GameDesign, Auto- Body Repair, and Drone & Robotic Technology. By 2020, CTECwill add programs in Business and T continued Construction Industry Days CTEC’s Business Liaison, Norma Sanchez, and Construction Instructor, Alex Olsen, organize monthly events calledConstruction IndustryDays highlighting what the students are learning in the Construction Industry Program. September’s Construction Industry Day included what the students are learning in their house build: en- gineering, foundation excavation, and grading. Industry professionals were invited and asked to provide hands-on experience showing how their field relates to what the students are learning. Geoengineers’ Julio Vela discussed geotechni- cal engineering pertaining to home foundations through an experiment with bricks, sand, and water. K&E Excavation’s Scott Zollinger brought an excavator and allowed each student to oper- ate the controls while digging around a fictitious median using Automated Machine Guidance and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Kyle Latimer from Udell Engineering, Brenda James from Project Delivery Group, Chris Pucci and Brett Murphy fromODOT, and Chris Glantz fromPLSOandOregonYoung SurveyorsNetwork attended and had students operate GNSS rovers provided by ODOT to stake out specific grading and utility features important in land devel- opment and construction. Our group of Land Surveyors saw 80 students, broken into groups of 4-5, throughout the day. Each student had an opportunity to use the equipment and see how land surveying fit into the construction industry. The CTEC students were respectful and attentive. Not once did our group see any of themdistract- ed by their phones. The students asked great questions and were supportive of their fellow classmates. At the end of each demonstration, they shook our hands and thanked us for our time, which was a welcome surprise. Our group thought the event was worthwhile and we have committed to attend yearly. Outreach…get out and share! For years, it seems like surveying has leaned on luck to provide its workforce, but we can all say that we can no longer expect luck to sustain our need. It is glaring how difficult it is for Land Surveyors to relate to younger gen- erations. Being of a younger generation, I find myself filling the gap between our experienced professionals and the youth we would like to enter the profession. Having been involved in many workforce development conversations at the state and national level, I have determined that land surveying is looking for a silver bullet to solve our workforce problems. It is true that we need to better market ourselves, which can be done in part with the help of PLSO’s rebranding effort, but I don’t think we will re- place boots-on-the-ground outreach with any type of ad campaign. Land surveying was built by a group of professionals who are not afraid of working hard, and we can’t expect to dig out of our situation by any other means. Outreach opportunities are plentiful—all it takes is a de- sire to share. For more information about CTEC, please visit their site: http://ctecsalemkeizer.com/