PLSO Oregon Surveyor January/February 2019

Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org 7 From the PLSO Office while operating to accomplish themission, and improve the organization. No matter what Pat works on for PLSO, he isn’t afraid of a hard discussion and always has the intention of moving PLSO into the future and keeping it on the forefront of the sur- veying profession. I couldn’t ask for more froma Chairman. He will continue to work with the Board for this year, serving along- side our newly minted executive officers, Chairman Shawn Kampmann and Chair- Elect, Jeremy Sherer. Under Pat’s leadership, the 2018 Board of Directors and several of our Commit- tee Chairs and volunteers accomplished quite a lot. We started the year off with an amazing record-breaking Education&Out- reachAuction, raisingover $34,000.00.With that money, we contributed to our ever- growing Scholarship account, ultimately awarding $18,000 in scholarships, rede- signed a newbooth for job fairs and public events, updated and printed promotion- al materials aimed toward students and members of the public who are looking to hire a land surveyor, and participated in various outreach events. The Oregon Young Surveyors Network continues to serve as a source of inspiration to us and, as always PLSO and our lobbyist Darrell Fuller are working tirelessly for your ef- forts in Salem and Washington D.C. PLSOcurrently has 568members. We have remained fairly consistent for the past five years. The breakdown is as follows: • 367 Corporate Members • 98 Associate Members • 31 Special members • 19 Retired • 27 Students • 26 Life Members It is a consistent goal to grow that num- ber. It’s been interesting watching the membership category numbers go up and down over the years and how it has reflected conversations about the profes- sion. Corporate membership has gone down a bit, and yet our Associate mem- berships have risen over 30% since 2014. We need to be consistent in what we can provide to our Associates and that is net- working and education. Welcome them into your conversations and encourage their involvement and we will continue to grow stronger. Speaking of the future, I would like to acknowledge and thank our Oregon Tech student volunteers. Without their presence at our conference, we’d be done for. Thank you to Oregon Tech for continually participating in the PLSO Con- ference year after year. One of my most favorite volunteers is now the Willamette Chapter Secretary and a speaker for ODOT at this year’s conference. So, everyone be nice to the students because you’ll all be wanting to hire them soon enough. By now you are probably wondering what the second poignant moment was at the Annual Meeting. I am honored to say that it was a day of anniversaries as I got to celebrate my 5th year working for all of you. It was especially touching to be recognized by everyone in attendance. Adults so seldom get to be acknowledged the way I was at the meeting, and I will always remember that moment. It’s also why I’m particularly excited to honor our awesome 2019 Awards recipients in this magazine edition as well. I admire all of them somuch and look forward to seeing what other new and exciting things they’ll dream up for all of us this new year!  x