January February 2018

14 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 41, No. 1 PLSO Conference Your professional community recently voted you “Surveyor of the Year.” You have been extremely involved in your professional community the past few years. How has being a member of PLSO impacted your life and/or career? Being a member of the PLSO has made an enormous impact on my career as a surveyor. To me, the real importance is the fact that I now have personal connections with my fellow survey- ors which allows a bit of protection for the whole community. If I see a possible conflict with another surveyor, I simply give that surveyor a phone call or meet up at lunch where it allows us to work out a solution in a non-adversarial way. Let’s not forget we need to understand that surveying is a practice. Practice, as in we are still learning and still improving. There is no better way to become a skilled surveyor than by sharing the institutional wisdom that the PLSO has to offer. If you want to know whether you can trust the work of a certain surveyor in Malheur County, then call a fellow PLSO member who has retraced dozens of that surveyor’s maps and you can share the knowledge that may make a huge difference in your boundary resolution. What do you get out of volunteering your time to your community? I get a lot of personal satisfaction, comradery, and it is just a whole lot of fun. The personal satisfaction comes from seeing something that is useful, interesting and unique being created. The PLSO is at the leading edge of mentorship programs, intern- ships, rebranding, and of course the Young Surveyor’s Network. Other state organizations are talking about these things, but Oregon is doing them. I’m not saying I am pushing the agenda or doing the all-important work, but I will accept a little credit for showing enthusiasm and encouraging others to be part of some astonishing work. Why is it important to encourage more people to enter the profession? It is important to encourage others to enter the profession for two reasons; both negative and positive. First, the negative rea- son. In the future, we will see a serious depletion in the ranks of surveyors as us old gray hairs start to age out and end up wearing pants that go up to our armpits. We are not replacing our ranks and if we don’t do something about it then I can envi- sion a whole lot of terrible things happening. For one, we could find each licensed surveyor supervising a dozen crews, and by supervising, what I really mean is showing a disturbing lack of attention that would truly hurt the professionalism of survey- ing. We could also end up with something like a para-surveyor, an unlicensed practitioner who will do all the survey work, but would be overseen by a Licensed Professional who would accept responsibility for the para-surveyor’s work. We unfortunately have this situation going in a few instances already and we call it the pejorative term ‘rubber stamp.’ We cannot afford to be in such short supply that the legislature steps in and tries to ‘fix’ the surveyor shortage. As a positive reason for encouraging others to join our profes- sion, well, surveying is just really cool. We will soon be using drones on a semi-regular basis because the economic efficien- cies will be too great to ignore. We get to be outside when we are beginning our career and we get to be inside when our creaky weary bones could use the comfort of an air-conditioned office while sipping on a pumpkin latte’ and the younger surveyors are enjoying the real hot days or the cold wet nasty days. Of course, I have found that over the course of my career, no two days are alike (unless of course you are stuck in the basement of a big firm doing endless construction calculations non-stop until your soul is a withered wisp of its former self and you be- gin wishing for a quicker and less painful death). Every day is a new and unique challenge. Any advice for those just starting out on their career path? I think I would ask these people to network with others, such as the Young Surveyor’s Network and absorb some major enthusi- asm from the youthful energy of this group. Connect with the old guys and learn from them as much as you can. There is a huge wealth of knowledge from these people and they will generally talk to anyone about surveying to anyone who cannot outpace them. Finally, remember that surveying is a practice. You will get better at it as you continue to learn and solve more interest- ing problems. We all want you to succeed and we (as in the old guys) are willing to offer advice and encouragement. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. I am still asking advice from other sur- veyors all the time and I have been working on this for a while. Interview w/ Lee Spurgeon, PLS Owner/operator of Township Surveys