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PLSO Issue 6 2015 Nov Dec

Speaking of Travel Pat Gaylord’s photos of Jordan Valley are truly 3 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org FROM THE EDITOR „ Greg Crites, PLS inspiring. I’ve got to admit that I look forward to every issue of this magazine just to see what he will come up with based upon his travels! Since Pat was east of the Cascades, I thought I could take the liberty of including a photo I took of an interesting rock formation whilst visiting the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) last April in a journey to watch Sandhill Cranes. What do you see in the picture? What else? Imagine my surprise to discover that Sandhills don’t seem to care about the boundaries of the NWR, in fact, we never saw one within the refuge. ey were all comingling with cows on private ranch land. If you’ve ever searched online for their mating rituals, you’ll be taken to various YouTube videos of them performing their entertaining dance in eorts to pair up with a member of the opposite sex. Whilst watching them, two things came to mind. Watching members of the Watusi tribe in Sub-Saharan Africa perform dances in their colorful attire, and standing at the counter in a juke joint here in Oregon watching folks dancing to country and western music! e idea of imagining the parallels between the Watusi and Sandhill Cranes isn’t a big yank, especially when you consider the parallels in their stature (think tall)! Country and Western dancing on the other hand, at least in my experience, has a lot to do with primitive mating rituals and probably harkens back to some pre-Druid period in our history, though I’m sure anyone who is a devotee of that style of dancing would vehemently disavow such a comparison. Our conference is coming up in nearly a month. Just as I did last year, I encourage you to consider attending the PLSO conference rst if you reside in Oregon. With our declining membership and the heavy reliance we place on conference fees to meet our operating expenses, we need the numbers. I think the conference committee has done a great job putting together an informative program that should easily satisfy your needs for continuing professional development hours. If you have any business opportunities dealing with ood insurance, I encourage you to avail yourself of the session put on by Christine Shirley. With the changes to the National Flood Insurance program precipitated by the Biggert-Waters Act of 2012 and recent program amendments addressing some of the holes in that attempted reform, surveyor’s need to understand the added complexities of the program and prepare for the questions they may be asked by aected homeowners. I attended a workshop in 2013 led by Christine and the Oregon Dept. of Land Conservation and Development, where she brought together surveyors, planners, lawyers and underwriters in an eort to open dialogues about the changes. It was one of the most informative workshops I’ve ever attended and not for the reasons you might expect. I seldom perform ood insurance certications, but my curiosity needed satisfying. Having the disparate perspectives on this program all in the same room opened my eyes to the diering needs for the information a surveyor may supply. It also opened my eyes to how seriously we have overlooked, as a profession, our need for outreach! ere are many allied disciplines that are eager to get their hands on data we can supply. We need to do a better job of selling the value of that data; primarily because of its quality. Sure you can get elevation data o an Internet search, but how reliable is it and are you willing to assume the liability that comes from using information that doesn’t necessarily come from reliable sources? ere are many opportunities at our conference to rub shoulders with your peers, with instructors and PLSO board members. I liken this experience to prospecting. You can mine information from the various sources available, and take away many nuggets pertinent to your specic needs. Where else can you nd such lode bearing veins in close proximity to each other? I look forward to seeing you at the conference in Eugene. I’ve been doing this for more than 40 years and I come away from every conference enriched in some way. You can too! e views expressed herein are mine and mine alone and in no way should be construed as representing ANY opinions shared by our membership or a stance on political issues by this organization.


PLSO Issue 6 2015 Nov Dec
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