17 Header Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org Member Spotlight This realization led Kowalski to enroll in the survey and geomatics program at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, and “I guess the rest is history!” he says with a laugh. Simultaneously, he began working on a survey field crew, marking the beginning of his surveying career about 10 years ago. Today, Kowalski is a PLS in Oregon and works as a remote sensing surveyor for S&F Land Services, a Pacific Northwest-based land surveying and remote sensing firm with offices in Vancouver, Bellevue, Portland, Seaside, Bend, and Phoenix, Arizona. At S&F, Kowalski’s role allows him to blend his surveying expertise with his background in remote sensing and interest in technology. He specializes in integrating drone technology, terrestrial scanning, and other remote sensing methods into surveying work. “My focus throughout my surveying career has been integrating remote sensing technologies in survey work,” Kowalski explains. Kowalski is also a certified mapping scientist in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) through the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). This certification, combined with his experience in remote control aircraft and his surveying background, positioned him perfectly to integrate drone technology into surveying as it became commercially viable around 2016. His unique skill set has led him to work on diverse and memorable projects. These range from mapping miles of roadways and utility corridors using drone-based LiDAR for major electric utilities, to scanning the interior of dams. “Being inside a spillway of a dam, under a 150-foot tall wall of concrete holding this lake back... it’s a pretty wild place to be,” Kowalski shares, noting that he appreciates and enjoys that surveying provides him I had this passion for geospatial data, but I just got to a point where I couldn’t be in a computer lab every day. Josh hiking in Lofoten, Norway. Josh on a sunny day of cross country skiing in the Oregon Cascades. continues
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