PLSO The Oregon Surveyor January/February 2020

4 Vol. 43, No. 1 The Oregon Surveyor | 2020 Conference & Annual Membership Meeting From the PLSO Office Aimee McAuliffe PLSO Exec. Secretary T hank you to everyone who at- tended the 2020 Conference and Annual Membership Meeting last month. This year felt like an overall pos- itive event for the surveying community. Members were laughing, discussing ses- sions, catching up with old friends, and introducing themselves to new ones. By now, if you attended, you should have received your Attendee Survey. Be sure to let us know what you thought and what kind of topics you want to learn about at next year’s conference—Janu- ary 20–22, 2021 at the Salem Conference Center. Be sure to save the date! Below is a slightly updated version (mem- bership) of what I discussed at this year’s Annual Membership Meeting on Janu- ary 23, 2020. I recently read an article posted on NPR’s Facebook page (and shared it on the PLSO Facebook/Twitter feed) about a land surveyor named Bob Vollmer, who will be retiring in February from the In- diana Department of Natural Resources at 102-years of age. It got me thinking in a few directions. The first came naturally for my role as your Executive Secretary, which was to hope that he’ll finally have time to volunteer for his state society. The second follows similar lines at the lo- cal level, wondering if I could somehow suggest to the Board of Directors that we could work with our Lobbyist Darrell Fuller on creating a state statute, which would up the surveyor retirement age to 100, or at least require all surveyors to continue working until they find a new recruit to the profession, mentor them through college and intern phase, and then, when they become licensed, the state lets the old surveyor retire. How- ever, considering how much all of you love being a land surveyor, I wasn’t sure if that really was an incentive to contin- ue to grow our future workforce or not. The last thought was more serious and introspective. Just imagine all the change Mr. Vollmer has seen regarding federal and state laws, land development, licensure requirements, technology and genera- tional changes in the workforce. Many of his former colleagues have passed be- fore him. Think how resilient he has had to be in order to achieve the amount of success he’s had, as well as maintaining the desire to work in the land survey- ing profession. I find it inspirational and a good example for PLSO to follow as an organization. No matter what kind of changes may happen that may seem daunting or feel exhausting, because we are so comfortable with how things are, we should continue to pick up our feet and not remain idle. Life will continue to change—we can stay rigid and feel our body give up, worn out from our brain telling our legs we can’t possibly climb that hill, or go around one more bend in the road, or we can be more flexible in our thinking. There isn’t one way to be a land surveyor, so there shouldn’t be one way we can serve the community. It’s important to understand that for us to continue to thrive, we need each other, or as Mr. Vollmer said, “I’ve had people that’s done a lot of big favors for me all my life. Some people, I don’t have no idea who they were, but I do feel like I owe all these people. I wouldn’t know how I’d re- pay them, but I think about them. I think about them an awful lot.” I hope we can all understand and enjoy how connect- ed life is, as he has. On that note, I have some people to thank as well. Shawn Kampmann, I appreci- ate your service as the Chairman of the Board last year and your continued time as our Past-Chairman this year. Pat Gay- lord may finally take a rest as he officially steps off the Board. Both men have been instrumental in steering PLSO through No matter what kind of changes may happen that may seem daunting or feel exhausting, because we are so comfortable with how things are, we should continue to pick up our feet and not remain idle.