It begs the question of our youth what attracts future
surveyors to the profession? Structural issues deplete human capital. We live
in a nation where education is falling behind the pack. What excited me 35
years ago was the technology that progressed the profession. The ability to evaluate
and automate a property line more
accurately or more accurately set a corner was intriguing to me. What is
happening today is this same technology mindset has contained human
interaction. At lunch, in the buffet line (and may I add, the lunches at
surveyors conferences are worthy of mom) I noticed all those gray haired
professionals were chatting amongst themselves. The few younger attendees were
on their electronic gadgets pushing buttons and being absorbed by whatever it
was they were doing. As I tried to promote a conversation I realized the ear
buds they were wearing prevented me from doing so. Where did live interaction
take a back seat to technology? Is it possible these “kids” were in the wrong
room? Taking the distraction of the social media aspect out of the equation,
when it comes to attracting the youth proficient at technology into the survey
profession is it the mentors that are failing because of a stagnate environment
and lack of involvement? Diverse forward thinking people in our profession
believe that division and stunted growth of this of the human resources
involved in technology is structural rather than cynical.
Stagnate growth? Perhaps not, but the next generation of
surveyors need to know that technology can provide more than just high game scores.
Imagine a profession that actually helps the AEC world through collaboration
rather than leaving it to individuals within the companies this technology
serves who have absolutely no experience with the technology. I liken the
experience a project has to go through to adopt mobile mapping to choosing a
cell phone. That they know about! I have attended some survey conferences that
had survey students in attendance and I have to say they are a breath of fresh
air. To see the future expectations in their eyes is truly an uplifting
experience. They are hungry for their professional life to begin and ask great
questions about the profession and the technology.
In the past five years that Terrametrix has been involved in
terrestrial mobile LiDAR our marketing efforts have been focused at helping
surveyors understand the up and coming technology. How it is not a threat to
their livelihood and actually can be used to expand their service offering to
existing or even more exciting new clients that they hadn’t even considered as
a market segment. In fact we have attended more than half of the state surveyor
conferences in the United States. I think we have a good feel for the pulse of
the profession. Unemployment is high but companies still have trouble finding talented
skilled workers. Static laser scanning 12 years ago suffered the same setback
because it was seen as a threat to the keepers of the current profession. In
the course of my 35 year career as a surveyor I have seen technology embraced
as it advanced the profession. But advantages of LiDAR as a catalyst to build a
profession seem to be misunderstood even as early as the days of airborne
acquisition. If we surveyors don’t embrace this technology as a way to expand our
businesses we will not only loose human capital but loose certain areas of civil/survey
services like we did large topos to airborne technology.
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