20 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 46, No. 1 At Hallgrímskirkja, a church in Reykjavík, Iceland. we generally can provide more speaker options at each time slot and we are able to offer more PDHs than we ever could before with the ability to stream and record sessions. You have served on the Board of Directors twice. In your opinion, what makes a board most productive? Besides the two terms on the board, I have also had the pleasure of participating in many meetings as just a committee chair (non-voting). I highly recommend and encourage every surveyor to donate a portion of their time to being on the board or assisting with a committee. The best way to ensure productivity in a board meeting is to prepare a direct motion of an issue to discuss that will be placed on the agenda in advance. Prepare and provide information on pros and cons of the motion and ask yourself if this motion is in the best interest of PLSO across the state. If funding is needed, then be ready to know where the funds can come from or can be generated. If the motion is going to need a champion to take it forward, be ready to step into this role. Try and limit personal stories and respect everyone’s time and the agenda’s time. A board meeting can have scope creep just like any project we face in professional practice and focusing on the key points or action items that need to be addressed will help keep a meeting on track. continued 2022 Surveyor of the Year What is your proudest moment as a surveyor so far? I believe I have had many great stepping- stone moments along the journey thus far. Passing all of my exams on the first try and getting my first PLS before I was 30 were huge goals for me when I first started. Standing up in front of a crowded PLSO conference for the first time as chair was more nerve-racking than I would like to admit. This award is a highlight in that I’m proud to know that at least some of my peers feel I’m at a minimum trying to put forth the extra effort to make our profession a little bit better for others. And I’m always proud if I can use my education and experience to help someone else learn something or get through a complex problem. Explain the position you hold at S&F Land Services. I am a Senior Project Manager in our Portland office. I generally am coordinating projects from proposal to completion in a variety of sectors including transportation, land development, utility improvements, and commercial redevelopment. I have worked on projects from Seattle to Southern California and work with great in-house teams across our network of offices that can put together a variety of solutions to clients’ needs with a rather robust set of tools. I have known many of my co-workers for many years while at S&F or from previous companies in the area. The collection of employees here makes up a great group of like-minded individuals open to working hard but also enjoying each other’s company outside of the workplace. The fact that S&F is a survey-only company really keeps the goals of the company and the goals of the employees aligned. Does S&F have an intern program? Do you have specific things you teach while they are on the job? We have hired completely green personnel and trained in-house for a variety of positions but not necessarily in an official program one may call an internship. We have many adjunct professors as employees and try to seek out future employees who have invested in themselves a little bit. What has been the most interesting project you’ve worked on? Three-dimensional air space subdivisions in SouthernCalifornia. As a surveying technician freshout of college, thiswas a survey product I never knew existed. Our team was able to create 3-dimensional real- world CAD files and then plot and label them in a way that may be best shown as a condo-style plat here in Oregon, but entire air spaces could be sold prior to construction. It was just a unique survey product of Southern California. What professional project have you learned the most from? The one where mistakes and/or oversights were involved. We have to learn from our mistakes and move forward for growth to occur. Some mistakes can be caused by the actions of others but without clear documentation of the process, you may find yourself defending your own actions and/or settling mistakes collectively to move forward. What advice would you give to people just starting their career right now? An investment in yourself with formal education will always pay dividends for the rest of your career and assist in a quicker climb up the career ladder. Continued education will keep you in demand and open to a wider variety of projects requiring complex solutions. Be ready to seek out and learn from the large amounts of online content available. A good question is not “How much should I be paid?” but “How much I can bring to a company to increase my own billout rate?” Colosseum, Rome.
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