PLSO The Oregon Surveor September/October 2021

2 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 44, No. 5 From the PLSO Chair MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR H appy summer and welcome to the new open Oregon. Hard to believe we hung in there for 15 months, learning and coping with all the new ways to do business and complete projects in a different way. I’m sure all of us have adapted to these new ways of working and getting business accom- plished that will become standard and will modernize much of what we do and how we will do it in the future. What is it they say?... necessity is the mother of invention. Personally, I actually learned to appreciate those late afternoon Zoom meetings, and it was so easy to make your Scotch look like iced tea (just kid- ding, or maybe not). Now back to a subject that has been at the forefront of many discussions, which is the bolstering of our ranks with new li- censed land surveyors. In these past few months, we have discussed the issue of what is limiting new licensees into our profession at the chapter level as well as at the Board level. This issue is not be- ing discussed at just the PLSO, but it is a hot topic all across the nation. At our last PLSO Board of Directors (BOD) meet- ing, I discovered that a few of us were not aware that the licensing procedure changed in 2005, and Oregon is now de- coupled. The way many of us obtained our land surveying in-training (LSIT, now land surveying intern LSI) and then our PLS license is different in many ways to - day compared to then. In 2005, Oregon decoupled with NCEES and began a new procedure of testing and obtaining your LSI and PLS. When Oregon decoupled, it meant that you no longer needed any prerequisites to sit for any of the Land Surveying exams (FLS, PLS, Oregon Spe- cific Land Surveying Exam). Therefore, someone who just earned their 4-year ABET accredited degree could take all three of the land surveying exams right out of college, even though they don’t have any experience. NCEES is the national organization that steers the direction on some of the qualifi - cations needed to be completed to obtain both the LSI and PLS. However, in real- ity, since Oregon is decoupled, anyone, regardless of education or field experi - ence in land surveying, can apply to take the FLS exam and upon passing take the PLS exam. The experience and/or educa- tion requirements come into play with the application for their Oregon profession- al land surveying license. That procedure is very different than in the past and should be noted so you can advise any- one who is interested in our profession of this licensing procedure. I would also encourage you to contact the OSBEELS office if you have any questions on this. At our last PLSO BODmeeting, your chap- ter presidents brought the suggestions from their chapters on the subject of land surveying licensing requirements. As you recall, in our April BOD meeting, Jason Barbee from OSBEELS gave a pre- sentation on the current requirements in Oregon to obtain a PLS and what some of the requirements were from some surrounding states. He asked that we discuss with our member’s what we felt were some of the hurdles that hindered potential candidates from becoming li- censed in Oregon. During Mr. Barbee’s presentation, he shared a list of the ed- ucation and experience requirements for NCEES Western zone states. I’m go - ing to list the states with their experience and education requirements that were in the aforementioned handout on the next page. The list on the facing page was compiled without verification from each state and may contain outdated information. OSBEELS is gathering feedback from a number of sources and will consider all feedback prior to deciding how to move forward. Once OSBEELS feels it has had enough feedback, they will likely draft new proposed rules. Tim Fassbender, PLS PLSO Board Chair