January February 2018

The Oregon Surveyor | 8 Vol. 41, No. 1 PLSO Conference PLSO Conference 2018 T he 2018 Professional Land Surveyors Conference— Beyond the Horizon has come and gone and we hope that it was a great way for all of the attendees to jump start their spring as we brace for what looks to be another busy year in our industry. This year we welcomed back the familiarity of the Salem Conference Center and in turn they welcomed us back to a smooth running and successful event. The theme this year was Beyond the Horizon and hopefully each and every attendee was able to broaden their horizons and look into the upcoming year. Were your horizons expand- ed? Did you get a chance to review new technology or dust off some old boundary case law you forgot about? Did you get a chance to investigate some drone technology or maybe find a class that addressed new software processes, field procedures or case studies from someone who has been there before? You may have answered some old questions of “How am I going to get all this work done?” with new answers from the vendors, but maybe you reaffirmed an old answer of: “Accurate, Fast, and Cheap.” Pick two, but never three. No matter what you took away from the conference, I hope you can share some of what you learned with others who could not attend. Personally, the face-to-face networking and catching up with my peers is the most important part of any conference. The classes are great, and I enjoy continually learning something new but I covet the time I can network with others during the three day event. One thing I learned is everyone is busy and the value in knowing that alone helps with decisions on billing rates, wages, employee satisfaction, the type of work we take on, and/or the allowances/breaks that we give to some cli- ents in the year to come. If your busy as well, now might be a good time to talk to your network of peers and brainstorm on how we all are going to make it through this next busy sum- mer. Coordinated crew help? Local firms working with out of town firms? Maybe we can all work together to help buffer the hiring pitfalls we all know so well, like the shortage of qualified help in the workforce. We find ourselves racing towards another summer, which in turn means another busy season, and for those select members on the conference committee, we are balancing this race with the planning for next year’s event. If you come across a great arti- cle, or piece of technology that you think is worth a second look, send those questions and concerns to the board office and we will review and investigate at our monthly meetings. Those of us on the committee simply strive to provide the membership with a great variety of new age technology mixed with the “old age” foundational framework of law and history. As you ven- ture into this new year, we will venture into another round of planning for the 2019 PLSO Conference at the Eugene Hilton. Once all the bills are accounted for and numbers are final, they will be presented at the board meeting together with the fi- nance report.  x Attendee Numbers and Breakdown • 226 Corporate Members • 46 Non-Members • 20 Special/Retired/ Committee • 63 Associate Members • 14 Life members • 35 Vendors • 12 Guests • 18 Students • 33 Speakers By Jered McGrath PLS, Conference Committee