The Oregon Surveyor Sept/Oct 2018

4 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 41, No. 5 From the PLSO Chairman Pat Gaylord, PLS Chairman of the Board MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN Our PLSO representatives have done a great job working with all the stakeholders on this (QBS) legislation. Their efforts helped PLSO accomplish one of our rebranding goals, which focused on making PLSO an easily recognizable organization to the public and the Oregon legislature. F all is upon us! I hope you took time from your busy summer schedules to get out and enjoy the perks of an Oregon summer. Your State Board of Directors continues to work hard on your behalf and has seen some sights this year as well. On September 15 we journeyed to Florence, Ore. in Southwest Chapter territory for a board meeting and enjoyed some of the beautiful sights and scenes along the way. Speaking of sights and scenes of Oregon, if you bump into John Thatcher, I think he has an after the BOD meeting story to tell if he’ll share it with you. In November we will be meeting at Oregon Tech in Klamath Falls for our final face-to-face meeting of the year. As I write this article, it is finally below ninety degrees, and the fall chill is slowly bringing in Salem’s next legislative session. We are anticipating seeing an outcome to the work PLSO and partners has done on the topic of QBS. Our PLSO representa- tives have done a great job working with all the stakeholders on this legislation. Their efforts helped PLSO accomplish one of our rebranding goals which focused on making PLSO an easily recognizable organization to the public and the Ore- gon legislature. With this goal in mind, we have worked closely with other stake- holders, such as engineers and architects, over the last few months and increased their awareness of surveyors and of PLSO as an important partner. There are still a few meetings to go, so stay tuned for the final outcome and possible future bills coming our way. Once the session starts, you may be called upon to testify or to reach out to your local legislators in support of QBS or other bills. It’s been a busy year, and a few of the topics like QBS, WestFed, and NSPS mem- bership dues increases have consumed much of the conversation all year. The board has been doing a great job evalu- ating these topics and watching out for PLSO’s best interests, both fiscally and contractually—all three of which are es- timated to draw to a close before the end of the year. There are new items popping up all the time that need at- tention, so stay tuned and attend your chapter meetings to be informed. One of the newest subjects to arise within PLSO is a workgroup on the Cascadia Subduc- tion Zone and preparing for “the big one.” Check out the article in this issue related to some of the ongoing efforts to track and prepare for earthquakes. PLSO rep- resentatives within the new workgroup will be addressing what happens to sur- veyors, boundaries, coordinate systems, networks, and the like once the big one hits. How do we get those networks back up and running quickly and efficiently, so that we can go to work fixing what- ever was damaged or destroyed? Reach out to John Putnam (Pioneer) and Paul Kowalczyk (Willamette) for more infor- mation, or to get involved.