In the course of my 32 year career, I’ve walked thousands of miles of topo. I know the banks of the Missouri River from the Kansas / Nebraska border to Ponca State Park, 32 miles along the Nebaska / South Dakota border setting monuments every two tenths of mile for Corp of Engineers hydrographic studies. I spent three years walking rail from Denver to Omaha, to Kansas City, to St Louis, to Chicago. Only surveyors that have been there know the roar of a tunnel survey or the alertness needed in traffic on a highway survey. I’ve worked through the advancement in technology. Each new step created unique challenges, new opportunities for land surveying and a more efficient way of mapping the land. From the chain, to the electronic distance measurement (EDM), Total Station, robotic total station, GPS, static scanning and now mobile scanning (TMLS), surveying and I have walked the walk.
Calculations of coordinates and distances trig and geometry is every surveyor’s foundation. I can attribute chaining to that. You know it’s that stuff you use every day! Real time back then was plane table surveying until it saw its replacement by the total station. The crew started sighting retro reflector range poles instead of stadia boards. 3D innovation in the Stereo pairs for aerial photogrammetry used in the Kelsh Plotter would trim your eyebrows. It was exciting to see the invention of the VanGuard 2000 as the first solution for surveyor’s safety. This self-contained unit without a rodman in traffic made for a safer way to document in highway traffic.
Throughout my entire career people have said “You can’t do that!”. In the 80’s it was “You can’t run trig levels”. In the 90’s it was “You can’t stake paving with a robotic total station or grading with GPS”. And now the statements are “You certainly can’t drive down a highway collecting survey grade data at highway speeds.” Well, guess what? Not only are we doing it, we are doing it more efficiently, safer and at an absolute accuracy of .03’.
In my case where there’s a way... there’s a will!
I’m excited about being able to share my career experiences in this social medium and look forward to your comments. I can’t tell you how often I will post as we are traveling all over the United States spreading the word of this technology and performing projects. Those who know me know I have lots to share, so make sure you subscribe to the email alert as we move forward in this next stage of advancing the survey profession.
Michael
