PLSO Oregon Surveyor Nov/Dec 2019

Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org 5 From the PLSO Chairman continuing support through our education and outreach committee to help recruit and grease the skids for mentoring our next generation of land surveyors into the profession. Tim, who is also champi- oning our Strategic Plan update, which will focus on increasing membership, continuation of education and outreach activities, as well as looking at ways to im- proving our leadership track for chapter officers, committee chairs and assisting the executive committee for continuity. Other Board goals include continuing our monitoring and advocating of legislative issues that benefit our professional inter- ests through our lobbyist, Darrell Fuller, as well as advocating for land surveyor vacancies to be filled and maintained on the OSBEELS Board, and hopefully estab- lishing a liaison of sorts with the newly appointed administrator, who will be speaking at the conference in January. What PLSO needs the most help with frommy perspective is more involvement from our members in order to maintain a healthy, viable organization. This is an issue with many volunteer organiza- tions, where a minority of members, do the majority of the heavy lifting to keep it alive. I’m imploring all of you to try to find some capacity, even in the smallest way, to help prevent burnout from our tired volunteers who keep going year af- ter year without relief. Being a chapter officer, whether President-elect or secre- tary, really isn’t as onerous as one may think. Yes, I was one of those members who avoided it like the plague, but when I was finally collared (more like guilt tripped) into it, I found it to be relatively painless, and actually came to enjoy the comrade- rie involved with the Chapter and Board members. You’ll be amazed at how sup- portive and helpful everyone is and will come to truly appreciate your involve- ment. Yes, I know, we never think that we have enough time because of kids, fami- lies, work, hobbies. I get it. But the truth is, you will come to value the experience and the relationships that you make net- working with your peers. I’ve learned a lot about our organization, the profession, and made many great friends. One of the many ways you can also help our profession is with mentoring. I will be forever grateful for the long list of old school mentors that I’ve had over the 40 some years of my career. It was proba- bly a lot easier back then when we were working on two or three person crews. You started as a chainman or rodman, worked your way up to an instrument person then eventually to party chief over the course of several years. Each step was taken after having the advan- tage of watching and being taught all the methods, tricks and procedures required over time by the experienced “old- timers,” then eventually made your way into the office to reduce notes, plot points, draft, perform calculations on the HP 31C. You really learned and honed your craft working side by side with those with much more experience. It’s harder in today’s world with one person “crews” who don’t have the advantage of experts working alongside you in the field. I feel fortunate to have learned the old-school way and, the comraderie and life long friendships made. I owe those mentors for the trajectory of my career which helped me pass my Alaska and Oregon exams on my first attempt, led me to exotic and wild envi- rons to some of the most remote places on earth, mingling with grizzlies, wolves, moose and mountain lions, commuting daily in float planes, helicopters, boats, ATV’s. They taught me the art of running P-lines and cross sections for logging roads through the coastal jungle with nothing but a compass, klino and rag tape. I learned the art of water boundar- ies, mineral surveys, GPS networking and manual post processing, project manag- er for the most vertical aerial tram in the world, and everything in between. After 20 years of running a successful busi- ness, I can honestly say that I owe it all to mentoring from some of the best land surveyors anywhere. We all owe our mentors to pay it back to the next generation of land surveyors and I’m proud to have been a mentor to some fine surveyors today. Wishing everyone Happy Holidays and look forward to seeing you at the 2020 PLSOConference in Portland next year. x