the nevada traverse - The Nevada Association of Land Surveyors

Transcription

The Nevada
Traverse
Institutional Affiliate
National Society of Professional Surveyors
Member Western Federation of Professional Surveyors
Vol. 39, No. 1
Journal of the Professional Land Surveyors of Nevada
2012
UNR Earthquake Lab Shakes Things Up... See Page 16
Memoriam: Maurice Eugene “Gene” Lafferty... See Page 13
«««««
ALL SURVEYORS ISSUE «««««
“To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is … the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind.”
—John Quincy Adams (c. 1846)
Who’s Who in NALS
2012 State Association Officers
Ray Hebert, PLS, President
Tri State Surveying, Ltd.
1925 E. Prater Way
Sparks, NV 89434
Email: [email protected]
Vern Little, PLS, President-Elect
VTN Nevada
2727 S. Rainbow Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV 89102
Glen Armstrong, PLS, Secretary
U.S. Geomatics, Inc.
227 Vine Street
Reno, NV 89503
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 20522, Reno, NV 89515
Bus. 775- 358-9491
Fax: 775-358-3664
Bus. 702- 873-7550
Fax: 702-362-2597
Bus. 775- 786-5111
Fax: 775-786-5114
Trent Keenan, PLS, Treasurer
Diamondback Land Surveying, LLC
2980 S. Rainbow Blvd., Suite 210
Las Vegas, NV 89146
Bus. 702-823-3257
Fax: 702-933-9030
The Nevada Traverse
Terry W. McHenry, PLS, Editor, The Nevada Traverse
14710 Rancheros Drive
Bus/Fax: 775.852.7290
Reno, NV 89521
NSPS Governor for Nevada
Bus. 702.804.2060
Fax: 702.804.2299
Great Basin Chapter
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 944, Elko, NV 89803
Carl C. deBaca, PLS, President and Chapter Representative
Alidade, Inc.
Bus. 775- 777-8587
P.O. Box 1586
Fax: 775-777-8587
Elko, NV 89803
Norman M. Rockwell, PE, PLS, President-Elect
Bureau of Land Management
Bus. 775- 753-0321
3900 E. Idaho Street
Fax: 775-753-0246
Elko, NV 89801
Bill Nisbet, PLS, Treasurer
Chilton Engineering
421 Court Street
Elko, NV 89801
Jason Caster, PLS, President-Elect
Wood Rodgers 575 Double Eagle Court
Reno, NV 89521
Kevin German, PLS, Secretary
CFA, Inc.
1150 Corporate Blvd.
Reno, NV 89502
Halana Salazar, PLS, Treasurer
NDOT
1263 S. Stewart St.
Carson City, NV 89712
James Bedard, PLS, Chapter Representative
Stantec Consulting
6980 Sierra Center Parkway, Ste. 100
Reno, NV 89511
Bus. 775- 823-4068
Bus. 775- 856-1150
Bus. 775- 888-7470
Bus. 775- 398-1211
Fax: 775-850-0787
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 572152, Las Vegas, NV 89157
Executive Secretary position is currently vacant
P.O. Box 20522
Bus: 775.624.6257
Reno, NV 89515
Fax: 775.624.6257
Contact Individual Board Members (above)
John Grange, PLS, Secretary
Grange Surveying, Inc.
218 Holyoke Drive
Spring Creek, NV 89815
David Crook, PLS, President & Chapter Representative
Tri State Surveying, Ltd. Bus. 775- 358-9491
1925 E. Prater Way
Sparks, NV 89434
Southern Nevada Chapter
Central Office
Paul Burn, PLS
G.C. Wallace, Inc.
1555 South Rainbow Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV 89146
Lahontan Chapter
Bus. 775-753-3610
Bus. 775- 738-2121
Fax: 775-738-7995
Alan Dill, PLS, President and Chapter Representative
Stanley Consultants, Inc.
Bus. 702-534-2150
Fax: 702-348-8364
5820 S. Eastern Ave., Suite 200
Las Vegas, NV 89119
Gary Hancock, PLS, President-Elect
City of North Las Vegas
50 East Brooks Ave.
North Las Vegas, NV 89030
Sean Corkhill, PLS, Secretary
Las Vegas Valley Water District
100 City Parkway, Suite 700
Las Vegas, NV 89106
Jonathan Wooten, PLS, Treasurer
Las Vegas Valley Water District
100 City Parkway, Suite 700
Las Vegas, NV 89106
Bus. 702-633-1310
Fax: 702-633-1909
Bus. 702-875-7074
Fax: 702-822-3350
Bus. 702-875-7075
Fax: 702-822-3350
WFPS Delegates from Nevada
Nancy Almanzan, PLS
City of Las Vegas
333 N. Rancho Dr.
Las Vegas, NV 89106
Matt Gingerich, PLS
NVEnergy
PO Box 10100 S4B2O
Reno, NV 89520
Bus: 702.229.6343
Fax: 702.804.8582
Bus: 775.834.4567
Fax: 775.834.4189
The Nevada Traverse
This publication is issued quarterly by the Nevada Association of Land
Surveyors (NALS) and is published as a service to the Land Surveying profession of the state of Nevada. The Nevada Traverse is an open forum for
all surveyors, with an editorial policy predicated on the objective of NALS
Constitution and Bylaws, Article II, which reads:
“The purpose of this association shall be to promote the common good and
welfare of its members in their activities in the profession of Land Surveying; to
promote and maintain the highest possible standards of professional ethics and
practice; to promote professional uniformity; to promote public awareness and
trust in Professional Land Surveyors and their work.
This organization, in its activities and in its membership, shall be non-political, nonpartisan, non-sectarian, and non-discriminatory.”
The publication is mailed to NALS members and similar organizations on a complimentary basis. The Nevada Traverse is not copyright protected. Articles, except
where specifically copyright noted, may be reprinted with proper credit. Written
permission to reprint copyrighted material must be secured either from the author
directly, or through the editor.
Articles appearing in the publication do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of
NALS, its officers, Board of Directors, or the editor, but are published as a service to its members, the general public, and for the betterment of the surveying
profession. No responsibility is assumed for errors, misquotes, or deletions as
to its contents.
Advertising Policy
(Effective January 1, 2012)
COLOR Adv. Sizes/Types/Placement
B&W Adv. Sizes/
Types/Placement
The Nevada Traverse is published quarterly by the Nevada Association of Land
Surveyors and accepts advertising. Contact the editor for submittal specifications
for advertisements. The rates per issue are as follows:
Prof’l Listing
1/8 Page
1/4 Page
1/2 Pg (horiz or vert)
3/4 Page
Full Page
Center Spread (full
pages ONLY)
Inside L OR R face
Inside L AND R face
Outside L OR R face
Next 2 Spreads Out
from Center
1/4 Page
1/2 Pg (horiz or vert)
Full Page
Cover (full pages ONLY
except as noted)
Inside front cover
Inside back cover
Outside back cover
(3/4 page ONLY)
MEMBER
PRICE
1 Issue Yearly (4x)
$70.00 $165.00
$100.00 $305.00
$175.00 $525.00
$240.00 $730.00
$315.00 $950.00
$350.00 $1045.00
NON-MEMBER
PRICE
1 Issue Yearly (4x)
$265.00
$525.00
$295.00
$615.00
$345.00 $965.00
$430.00 $1180.00
$505.00 $1310.00
$540.00 $1530.00
The
Editor’s
Corner
by Terry W. McHenry, PLS
Feature Article
The cover photo of this issue of The Nevada Traverse
introduces the readers to our feature article. Kevin German,
PLS, of CFA, Inc., in Reno, shares an interesting and unique
project he was recently involved with at the University of
Nevada, Reno. The project involved a type of high accuracy
industrial survey for the university’s world-renowned Large
Scale Structures Earthquake Engineering Laboratory.
See Page 4 for About the Cover, and the article itself,
beginning on Page 16 , including the accompanying photos.
Tri State Photogrammetry Receives 2011 Best
of Business Award
On December 13, 2011, Tri State Photogrammetry was
selected for the Best of Business Award by the Small
Business Community Association (SBCA) in Phoenix,
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE u
Table Of Contents
$610.00 $1745.00 $890.00 $2225.00
$1020.00 $2940.00 $1530.00 $3875.00
$560.00 $1580.00 $840.00 $2100.00
The Editor’s Corner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
About the Cover. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The President’s Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Surfing the Edge of Chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
$290.00 $770.00 $485.00
$400.00 $1080.00 $610.00
$560.00 $1580.00 $840.00
$1340.00
$1615.00
$2100.00
It’s All About TECHNOLOGY?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Nevada’s Four Year Degree Program Part II. . . . . . . . 9
Nevada’s Abandoned Mining Site Dangers. . . . . . . . 11
Memoriam: Maurice Eugene “Gene” Lafferty . . . . . . 13
$640.00 $1855.00 $990.00 $2790.00
$600.00 $1810.00 $930.00 $2375.00
Minimum Level of Competency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
$580.00
Sustaining Members. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
$1740.00 $1000.00 $2442.00
UNR Earthquake Lab Shakes Things Up . . . . . . . . . 16
Professional Listings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22-23
Deadlines for submittals are the middle of January, April, July, and October.
Business cards of the members will be published in each issue unless otherwise requested.
Running an ad does not imply endorsement of that advertiser by NALS, and
the editor reserves the right to not accept ads which may be in poor taste or
objectionable to the policies of NALS.
Send ad requests to:
Lahontan Chapter Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Terry W. McHenry, P.L.S.
Editor, The Nevada Traverse
14710 Rancheros Drive, Reno, NV 89521
Phone/fax: 775-852-7290
email: [email protected]
BLM Accepted Surveys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2 The Nevada Traverse Vol. 39, No. 1, 2012
Southern Nevada Chapter Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Meeting Minutes, NALS BoD, 01/13/2012. . . . . . 26-27
NSPS Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
NSPS Area 9 Director’s Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Advertiser Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
The Editor’s Corner continued from previous page
Arizona. Mitchel Bartorelli, Chief Photogrammetrist for Tri
State, heads up the photogrammetry operations for Tri State
Surveying, Ltd., in Sparks and Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Small Business Community Association is dedicated to
collecting and organizing information, training, and services
that are vital to small business owners. The mission of
SBCA is to promote a vibrant and growing small business
community, support education that will preserve and extend
the future of small businesses, and use the gifts within the
small business community to serve others for the betterment
of the world.
Congratulations to Mitch Bartorelli and Tri State
Photogrammetry for this prestigious award, and for its longstanding support of NALS.
LightSquared/ACSM Consolidation Updates
A number of events have taken place in terms of the
continuing effort by LightSquared to establish a nation-wide
4G network for advanced wireless technology.
Our national level representatives, Carl C. deBaca, PLS, Area
9 Director, and Paul Burn, PLS, NSPS Governor for Nevada,
bring us updates on the continuing LightSquared matter, and
on the consolidation of ACSM into the National Society of
Professional Surveyors. See both of these reports in this issue
of The Nevada Traverse.
Memoriam for Eugene “Gene” Lafferty, PLS 1847
by Terry W. McHenry, PLS
This issue’s cover photo shows Kevin German, PLS, of CFA,
Inc., at the total station in the University of Nevada Reno’s
Large Scale Structures Earthquake Engineering Laboratory.
The project involved a 2/5 scale model of a curved, 145
foot long concrete deck/steel girder bridge structure, being
subjected to several simulated seismic evens, some on a level
of more than twice that of the 1994 Northridge, California
earthquake.
CFA worked pro-bono for the University of Nevada at Reno to
provide precise locations of the bridge substructure, consisting
of two structural steel abutments and two reinforced concrete
columns. The bridge structure itself was constructed off-site
in three segments and trucked to the UNR site. CFA was
required to conduct an as-built survey of extremely tight
tolerances on the substructure abutments and columns, plus
the bridge deck sections.
The testing of this model is part of a larger project
investigating seismic resilience, and is funded by the Federal
Highway Administration.
The photos accompanying this article were taken by the coauthors, or their staff involved on the project.
U
Shortly after the first of the New Year another charter member
of NALS, and a pioneer in many photogrammetric innovations
for land surveying, passed away. Gene Lafferty’s contributions
to the profession and to NALS are briefly recounted for us
by Larry Grube, PLS, Chief Photogrammetrist at Summit
Engineering in Reno, Nevada. See Page 13.
About the Cover
Due to the close proximity of press time, the announcement in
this issue of The Nevada Traverse will be followed up in the
June issue with a more extensive background on Gene’s multifaceted career in both land surveying and photogrammetry.
U
Has Your Contact
Information Changed?
Kevin German, PLS, operates a Trimble S6 Total Station used to take
measurements of the bridge’s substructure elements.
Change in your address,
email address, or telephone?
Please contact NALS with
your updated information.
You may email Glen Armstrong, PLS
NALS Secretary at:
[email protected]
Help your NALS Board
to keep you current.
Thank you!
The first bridge segment enters the earthquake lab for installation.
The Nevada Traverse Vol. 39, No. 1 2012 3
by
Raymond R. Hebert, PLS
Photo by Steve Shambeck
The
President’s
Report
State of the State
In 1972 Walt Neitz representing Northern Nevada and Gil
Buck representing Southern Nevada sent out questionnaires to
177 registered Land Surveyors in Nevada. This questionnaire
was an attempt to hold regional organized meetings in Nevada
which received enthusiastic response. The goal was to increase
the recognition and respect for their chosen profession.
During the spring of 1973 the first meeting of Registered
Land Surveyors from Northern and Southern Nevada was
held in Tonopah. For the next six months the group drafted
the Constitution and Bylaws and formalized it as an IRS Tax
exempt organization and filed it with the Secretary of State.
The Nevada Association of Land Surveyors was born. Welcome
to our 40th year Anniversary of the Nevada Association of Land
Surveyor’s, NALS!
The Purpose of our Association is:
1) To promote the good and welfare of its members and
their activities in the profession of land surveying.
2) To promote the common good and welfare of the public
in terms of professional land surveying activities.
3) To promote and maintain the highest possible
standards of professional ethics and practices.
4) To promote public awareness and trust in Professional
Land Surveyors and their work.
We live by these purposes as members of this great
organization. When you look through the Charter Members
of the NALS it reads like a who’s who list of our mentors,
educators, surveyors and friends. Please review the included
listing of the Charter Members of 1973.
Some of you will know many, some may know only one or
none of the above charter members, but one thing can be said,
these men had the courage, drive and fortitude that seems to
be a hall mark that we Professional Land Surveyors wear on
our sleeves. In honor of the 40th anniversary we salute the 82
charter members shown on your sheet for the conviction to
make a difference.
There are a number of things which happened in 2011;, some
good, some not.
In 2011 we lost six land surveyors:
Bill Cuddy, Gene Lafferty, Elmer Plumer, Tom Foote, Rick
Zaninovich and Jason Patnaude, two of which were Charter
Members. If I’ve missed someone that I am unaware of, pardon
me as I mean no disrespect. May they rest in peace and
hopefully not give God too much of a hard time when they’re
staking out their territory in heaven.
With the help of Bob LaRiviere and Brett Jefferson, NALS
Dedicated the Tom Foote Monument just to the west of the
Lawlor Events Center in Reno.
The President’s Report.. continued from previous page
The Nevada Traverse enjoyed another four issues this year.
Two of which were digital, two were hard copies. This seems
to be working with holding down the costs. I don’t know where
Terry gets all those articles he puts together but the NALS
Traverse is one of the best publications of its kind in the
United States. Thank you, Terry.
Our 2011 joint conference with CLSA was well attended; a
total of 482 registrants attended, but only 88 full paid NALS
registrants attended, down around 10 % from the 2010 Nevada
registrants which we hope to bolster this year.
The much anticipated, noisy, fun Scholarship Auction raised
$7745.16. This is a fun event and most surveyors I know
get pretty caught up in the excitement of bidding. Marty
Crook played a vital role in the scholarship auction and was
responsible for buying books and instruments on the internet.
He then repaired the instruments so they were all working
models at the time of the sale. So, he is half the reason we are
making so much money for the students, thank you Marty for
your dedication and commitment to NALS.
Although NALS has money in the NSPS Foundation set aside
for Surveying scholarships, this years scholarships were
given by Monsen Engineering and the Tom Foote Scholarship.
Savanah Winnans was awarded the Monsen Engineering
Scholarship and Jolene Hoffman was awarded the Tom Foote
Scholarship. Jolene and Savanah will be honored at the
2012 Conference. Congratulations are in order for these two
recipients and I know we will be hearing from them soon. Just
as a side note, if you know any one who would like to apply for
a NALS Surveying Scholarship, the dead line is May 1st for the
fall semester and November 1st for the spring semester.
At the 2011 conference the following awards were given out:
The Meritorious Service Award went to Nancy Almanzan;
The Surveyor of year Award went to Skip Harness;
The Sustaining Member Award went to Aerotech Mapping;
Article of Year Award went to Terry McHenry;
And the Life Member Award went to Bill Mueller.
The NSPS Trigstar Program appears to be in full swing. The
finals were represented by all three Chapters. Ultimately,
Paige DePolo, Bishop Manogue Catholic HS, Reno won the
exam in 27:42.3 minutes followed up by Lisa Chong, Clark HS
Las Vegas, turning in 28:.01.7 minutes and Mai Khuu coming
in third place with a 28:24.6 minute time. You have to say,
they out- paced the boys. This being the case we are hoping
to see more women come to the forefront of land surveying
community.
It is a Berntsen Brass Cap monument placed on a curb, set
in memory of Tom Foote. A small group of people attended
the gathering. There is a very good write up in the Traverse
regarding Tom’s eulogy.
NALS was involved and had representation during the 2011
Legislative Session, primarily for the following five laws:
This year’s membership was up a little from last year at about
240 members; with your help maybe we can increase these
numbers this year.
SB49 - Relates to Public Roads/Rights- of-Way widths
perfected of certain roadways as listed on Presumed Public
Roads.
SB268 - Bidders Preference – Certificate of Eligibility
CONTINUED ON PAGE 32 u
Surfing the Edge
of Chaos
Will Surveying Catch the
Wave or Die in the Foam?
by Steve Boddecker, PLS
“Business, more than any other occupation, is a
continual dealing with the future; it is a continual
calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.”
—Henry R. Luce, founder of Time, Fortune, Life and other business magazines.
I
t is the summer of 1988 in Yellowstone National
Park. Fires are raging across 793,000 acres of
the park, causing unprecedented damage and
threatening wildlife extinction as never before seen on earth.
By September 8, 1988 over 36% of the park will be burning,
causing a complete closure of the Park for the first time in
history. Only the arrival of Mother Nature and her autumn
temperatures and cool, moist nights can calm the seas of the
firestorm.
With the Park’s popularity growing to a rate of 10 million
visitors a year, Yellowstone was long viewed as the cornerstone
of the National Park Service, a national treasure that needed
to be “managed.” About a decade before the fire, the National
Park Service began a series of discussions about just how they
could go about “managing” the natural aspects of the Park to
protect its visitors each year from any potential harm. Could it
create a sort of natural theme park to maximize the attractions
for its visitors, serving as the “wizard behind the screen” to
create a wilderness experience for all?
That is exactly what the National Park Service endeavored
to do throughout the 1970s as the popularity of the park
expanded. What they could not, and did not, account for was
the random act of chaos. That random act of Mother Nature
striking a lightening blast that would scorch the earth in a
matter of seconds, lighting up a decade of underbrush gone
wild. While fires are common in forests, the scale and scope
of this 1988 fire was fueled by the actions taken to control the
very “wildness” of a complex adaptive system.
Complex adaptive systems are what this article is all about
(well, and surveying too, but more about that later – stay with
me!). And it is the relationship of complex adaptive systems
in nature that mirror complex systems in business today, as in
centuries past. Yellowstone’s ecosystem defied human efforts to
tame it. The Park Service tried to instill a level of equilibrium
in the wild by quickly putting out fires, feeding wildlife for the
viewing pleasure of tourists, and overall denying the natural
rhythms of fire cleansing and renewed growth. By denying
the natural acts of chaos to shake the system and spark new
growth (and innovation – hence the coming connections to the
business world), what they got was a conflagration beyond
their wildest imagination, but one that did spark new policies
for national park management that exists even stronger today.
What applies to forests applies to the business world as well.
Equilibrium equals DEATH
“Prolonged equilibrium is a precursor of disaster, whether it
happens unwittingly or, as in Yellowstone, by intent”.1 Richard
Pasquale wrote this in his book, Surfing the Edge of Chaos.
He said the survival of any system depends on its capacity
to cultivate variety, not just tolerate it, within its internal
structure. If one fails to embrace change into its systems,
that living system will fail due solely to its inability to cope
successfully when change is forced upon it. And change is a
living chaos – it cannot be controlled, it cannot be predicted,
and it cannot be avoided. But it can be managed, and it can be
leveraged.
A great example of this is a simple goldfish in a bowl. If
minimal effort is given to feed it and care for it, and protect it
from predators, they can live a life of relative peace for a very
long time. But such fish are abnormally affected by even the
slightest, tiniest change in living conditions, and are unable to
thrive almost immediately. By contrast, fish in the ocean are
far more capable of surviving because their living conditions
change so rapidly with almost endless threats to their very
existence.
The lesson of Yellowstone makes us uncomfortable. We
attribute equilibrium with balance in life. Surely it is a “good
thing” that we have a slow, steady, methodical method to our
world. Disequilibrium equates to an off-balance of the seesaw.
“Balance occurs in nature when the components of a biosystem
are in sync. But when a fire in Yellowstone abruptly alters the
stable environment, that which has remained latent (debris
on the forest floor, or in the business world, unmet consumer
needs) can suddenly become manifest. Coping mechanisms
that have atrophied during long periods of equilibrium usually
prove inadequate for the new challenge. Without adventure,
civilization is in full decay”.2 When a long period of stability
lulls a company into equilibrium, that condition is tantamount
to a death sentence. The people within the company no longer
have the tools at their disposal to adapt and respond to the
slightest change.
So where does surveying fit in? Look at the Galapagos
Islands….
In 1839 Charles Darwin studied the ecological system of the
Galapagos Islands to determine if a stable, natural community
of living systems was at peace with itself in an isolated habitat.
Surprisingly what he found was turmoil. In his oft-quoted book
The Origin of Species, he said that living species experience a
constant struggle to live, survive and thrive. Chaos erupts at
unknown times, and in unknown ways, but it is the complex
living system that responds and thrives because it has learned
new tools to adapt to change almost immediately.
Like all complex adaptive systems, corporations, no matter
how large or small, must be ready for a sudden confrontation
with the hazards of natural selection. A good example of
this is Barnes and Noble, and Garmin. Garmin’s business
plan for nearly five years was predicated on the purchase
of an expensive “gadget’ that was hard wired into your car.
Once turned on, you could access their proprietary system of
navigation maps and destination routes to a pre-set address
point – with road data being the scarce commodity. What they
Surfing the Edge of Chaos.. The Laws of Nature and the New Laws
of Business, by Richard Pascale, Mark Millemann, Linda Gioja, Three
Rivers Press, 2000, pg 20.
2
Surfing the Edge of Chaos, pg 21.
1
Surfing the Edge of Chaos.. continued from previous page
didn’t account for was the introduction of Google Earth and its
entry into the navigation business.
By partnering with Verizon Wireless and other manufacturers
of personal phones, Google could leverage their earth-mapping
data and offer it for FREE GPS driving directions for mobile
phones. It already had all the road data so it cost Google
almost nothing to provide the service. Did you hear that rush
of air that just went by? That was the wind knocking out the
sails of Garmin’s business plan.
The same thing happened to Barnes and Noble, the epitome
of booksellers and mega-sized literary shopping experiences.
One morning the CEO woke up and heard the name AMAZON
and whole sectors of B&N’s business plans were damaged, or
eradicated almost immediately. There are no safe havens for
business, or living systems. “From cell phones to cotton seeds,
pharmaceuticals to payroll systems, herbicides to hot sauce,
soap to software, it is a Darwinian jungle out there, and it isn’t
getting any easier”.3
DNA is the enemy and the charm – evolution through learning
“Human beings are extremely well equipped with
consciousness and the capacity of foresight…human beings not
only learn behaviors but incorporate them into their cultural
DNA.”4
So far I’ve talked about living systems being able to adapt and
thrive in a culture of change, be it forests, wildlife, bookstores,
and businesses. But if a business like a small surveying firm
does not keep ahead of new ways of working, or new ways of
thinking, or innovation through the eyes of its next generation,
3
4
it runs the risk of neutralizing the natural DNA of its core
mission, the heart of your surveying business, and invites
armies of what Pasquale calls equilibrium enforcers to your
door.
The enforcers are the social norms or core beliefs about
the profession or business – in surveying they would be
characterized as resistors to new technology like GPS or
modeling, or beliefs that the practice of surveying can’t evolve,
or be affected by, the emergence of digital technology. This
poses a grave danger to a company because the enforcers
prevent new genetic material – ideas, innovations, and changes
to systems or operations – from inhabiting the entity. The
enforcers are strong enough to neutralize new ideas; much
the same way that our own body’s immune system seeks to
eradicate foreign substances. And we are then back to that old
paradigm – equilibrium sets in, and death is eminent.
The point I am making is that while clear similarities exist
between business and nature, we have one clear advantage –
as humans we are capable of seeing our future, of recognizing
danger, and can mobilize to take action. It is that DNA
structure that makes us different and unique. And as
surveyors, frankly we need to do a better job, both within our
own businesses and our profession, to change. Our ability to
learn from our mistakes, or from advantages and opportunities
proposed by others (such as the emergence of new technologies
like LiDAR, or 3D modeling), is what makes us a superior
living system above all others. And we need to cultivate that
skill, qualify and categorize our learning into professional
discussions, advancements in the profession, development of
new techniques, and more. We can, and we should, incorporate
this new genetic material into our DNA.
Surfing the Edge of Chaos, page 27.
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It’s All About
TECHNOLOGY?
by Andrew C. Kellie, PLS
I
t was only mid-morning when we finished putting the
gear in the truck. The job had been relatively simple.
We had replaced a corner (one of five) on an interior lot of
a suburban subdivision we originally staked a year ago, and we
had marked the corners of the building to be built on site. My rodperson, Ted, made a final check to be sure we hadn’t left anything
and then said, “You know, I’ve finally figured it out. Surveying is all
about technology, and I really like all the electronics we have. As
long as you know how to program the equipment, you can measure
whatever needs to be measured. When we’re staking, we take the
info from a map, upload what we need into the data collector,
and put the measurements on the ground. When we’re mapping
we locate the stuff on the ground, download it into the computer,
and we get a map. As long as we know what buttons to push and
what routines to use, it’s technology all the way. Not only that, but
the gear does good work - the distances we measured on that lot
this morning were within a few hundredths of the same distances
shown on the subdivision plat.”
I was very glad to have my selection of equipment validated,
especially since (with the economy the way it is) there is little
chance of changing the lineup. However, I wasn’t quite sure
about his conclusion ... that part about surveying being “all about
technology.” There is no question that we have good equipment, but
at the same time, the electronics involved often remind me of an
iceberg. The visible part of an iceberg is very impressive, but
9/10 of the ‘berg’ is actually hidden below water - and it was the
hidden part that sank the Titanic.
Since I’m the surveyor, it seemed that a brief explanation was
in order. “To begin with,” I said, “the electronics only do what
someone tells them, so before we plug in the cables, we need to
plug in some common sense. Those distances you mentioned,” I
continued, “were all pretty close to the plat. But you will recall that
for each distance, our field measurement was slightly longer than
the distance shown on the plat. Why was that?”
the measurements as they should be made.”
Back at the office, work involved downloading field data from a
previous topographic survey at a small shopping mall for use in
mapping. The data was all electronic, of course, and once again,
it all seemed to be about technology. The combined control and
topographic data from our field survey processed seamlessly and
the point plot looked reasonable. However, when Ted imported
road and utility data obtained from the local CIS office, nothing
seemed to plot correctly. In fact, there were two data sets shown
on the screen separated by, as Ted put it, “hundreds of miles.”
Ted was frustrated. “What’s the point of having data available for
public use if it is not usable? Did they do their work with a transit
and tape?”
Since I’m the surveyor, I got the call. I adjusted my patient look
and resolved to let the comment about a “transit and tape” go to
another time and concentrated on the data. “If you look closely,”
I said, “there are two sets of coordinates. We used a local set of
coordinates for out data, and the data from the city CIS is on
the state plane coordinate system. Fortunately, I insisted that we
locate those three TOW markers when we did the field work, even
though you were sure they were already in the city data. So, we have
common points in both data sets. If we rotate and translate one set
of coordinates to the other, the matter is resolved.” As I pointed out
to Ted, there was even a routine in the survey software to handle
the math - the only thing involved was knowing what math to do.
Since I’m the surveyor, I did the math - and Ted was able to finish
the topo.
Our final task for the day involved reconnaissance for physical
evidence to be located in the field during later boundary retracement.
Our clients, Mr. and Mrs. Fox, owned 50 acres (by deed) on
Black Gum Road. We used the courthouse computer database technology, once again, as Ted noted - to search the grantor and
grantee indices and locate deeds to both client and the adjoiners.
This work showed that Fox purchased from Smith. The Smith and
Fox deeds both referred to a deed from Abner Hawkins to Lucy
Hawkins Johnson, but Lucy’s deed was not of record. By checking
the probate records, however, I did find that Lucy Hawkins Johnson
and all of our clients’ adjoining (or their predecessors in title) were
heirs at law of one Abner Hawkins.
Ted was unimpressed. “I guess there was a satellite out of orbit or
there was too much refraction, or maybe we are just having a ‘long’
day.”
In accordance with company policy, we visited the adjoiners. Since
I’m the surveyor, it was up to me to do the talking. Mr. Powell, who
adjoined our client on the west, showed us two corners he claimed
as his. Both were pipes, old and rusted; the Fox and Powell deeds
both called for pipes, but with no mention of rust.
I adjusted my patient look. “The subdivision plat - which is called
for in our client’s deed - shows grid distances based on the state
plane coordinate system. Ground distance depends on where our
subdivision is in the state plane coordinate system zone
and at what elevation the subdivision is. The combined scaleelevation factor is around 1, but it will be a little more in some
places and a little less in others - sort of like prices at Motel
6. I’m the surveyor, so I calculated a combined scale factor and
uploaded it at the same time we uploaded the coordinates. Here,
our scale factor is less than 1, so that’s why all the distances we
staked were longer than the plat. If we don’t understand map
projections and correct the electronics accordingly, we don’t make
Mrs. Oakley adjoined our client on the south. Both the Fox
deed and the Oakley deed called for the common boundary as
“the slough”. The Fox and Smith deeds described the corners at
the slough as “marked” trees, but there was no mention of trees,
marked or otherwise, in the Oakley deed. According to Mrs. Oakley,
however, her husband had gone along the line with Mr. Johnson
and marked two cypress trees as corners so they could “both
timber to a fixed line and no one would get mad about someone
else cutting their trees, and it must have worked because we have
lived here 60 years with no trouble.”
Nevada’s Four Year
Degree Surveying /
Geomatics Program
Part II - Role of the Online
Survey Course
By James A. Elithorp, Ph.D., PLS
Program Supervisor, GBC Land Surveying /
Geomatics Program
In the last issue of The Nevada Traverse (Vol. 38, No. 4, 2011)
we traced the short history and development of the Program.
In Part II - Role of the Online Survey Course, we need to
look at the role of the online survey course in survey education.
Originally I had planned to narrow the focus to what it is like
to take an online course, but realized that this narrow focus
really would miss the target. We need the bigger picture
because the decision on whether to take an online survey
course is often based on the opportunity afforded by the course
more than whether you personally like the online delivery
method.
I have been working in survey education since 1994 and have
conducted research on the profession: what surveyors do in the
workplace, the challenges surveyors face, and especially how
surveyors enter the profession. Many of these publications can
be found at http://cot.gbcnv.edu/~elithorp; Select Publications.
I will attempt to sketch a recruitment picture of the Profession
in the next several paragraphs.
Those high school graduates that acquire a basic foundation in
mathematics and science are widely recruited by the nation’s
colleges and universities for engineering, business, computer
science and other programs of study. For reasons defying
precise definition very few of these high school graduates
initially choose Land Surveying/Geomatics as a profession.
Many researchers have looked at this phenomenon, but as yet
no precise definition has been generally accepted, nor have
attempted solutions been very effective. All evidence points
to the existence of a perception held by the families of these
high school achievers that Land Surveying/Geomatics is not
the ideal first choice for a career field. What can be quantified
is that most surveying and mapping programs experience low
enrollments.
These low recruitments have made the growth and
maintenance of residence surveying and mapping programs
most difficult. By ‘residence’, I mean a traditional college or
university program offering a four year degree in surveying
and mapping which delivers the coursework in live courses
requiring the student to relocate to a particular academic
campus. ‘Live’ courses are those that require the student
to physically occupy a specified geographic location at a
scheduled time two or three times a week. Residence programs
are the most affected by the low recruitment rate as high
school graduates are typically the most able to relocate to
the geographic location of the academic campus offering the
surveying and mapping program. Low enrollments threaten
the very existence of surveying and mapping programs. In
summary, we find expensive surveying and mapping programs
with low enrollments. As a result many surveying and
mapping programs have failed to grow and some have closed.
So this begs the question: If high school students are not
populating residence surveying and mapping programs in large
numbers, where do the other new members of the profession
come from? The answer is from the surveying and mapping
firms themselves. Many surveyors find their careers on the job
with a surveying and mapping firm.
The Profession has been slowly moving toward the educational
model promulgated in the Model Law and Model Rules by the
National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying
(NCEES) requiring a four year degree for licensure. This
model would have the high school student gain the four year
degree, then gain four years of experience with a surveying
and mapping firm, then apply for licensure. One shortcoming
of this model is that it does not provide any incentives for
those students who complete their education, part-time, while
working for a surveying and mapping firm.
There is now an educational path for these surveyors who find
themselves active in their careers working for a surveying
and mapping firm and have roots in their communities. If a
surveyor finds the Profession through a series of life events
culminating with employment at a particular survey firm, that
surveyor can gain the education they need for licensure. To
appreciate the solution the extent of the problem needs to be
dimensioned. Let us inventory the problems these surveyors
may have to face: (1) maintaining a full time job, (2) family,
and (3) mortgage on a house. Therefore, the surveyor is no
longer free to move to a new geographic location to be able
to attend the live courses on the campus of the college or
university offering the surveying and mapping program.
So the answer to this problem is to change the delivery mode
of the survey courses from ‘live’ to ‘online’. The content and
learning outcomes of the courses are the same. Competent
and experienced professors can facilitate student mastery
of the course learning outcomes using either mode of
instruction. But the use of the Internet to deliver a course to
a specific geographic address is a powerful development. It
brings the Profession back to the classroom. It integrates
the development of new members of the Profession into a
shared experience of the professor in the online classroom;
the student with one foot in the online classroom and one
in the surveying and mapping firm; with the mentorship of
the licensed surveyors in the firm. This integrative online
learning experience accelerates the student mastery of the
fundamental principles and concepts. My professional opinion
is that the practice component of the body of knowledge of
surveying and mapping is an important factor that facilitates
student application of the fundamental concepts presented in
the classroom. The importance of practice in this Profession is
evidenced by the Standards of Practice for Surveying adopted
as regulation by most state licensure boards. The Profession
needs to have one foot in the classroom.
The integrative triad of the professor in the online classroom,
student in the online classroom and the workplace, and
licensed land surveyors as mentors in the workplace is
a dynamic and powerful educative process resulting in
accelerated development of new members of the profession.
This integrative educative triad form of education is happening
right now in Nevada’s four year degree online Land Surveying/
Geomatics Program. I can give numerous examples of
current students enjoying this relationship between the Great
Basin College survey online classroom, work experience, and
workplace mentorship.
With this perspective we can now discuss what it is like to
take the online survey course.
CONTINUED NEXT PAGE u
Nevada’s Four Year Degree Program.. continued from previous page
It is just a college-level course in surveying taught over the
Internet instead of in a ‘bricks and mortar’ classroom. It isn’t
really a matter whether you like the online course. It is a
matter of whether you need the online course to advance your
career. Like most experiences in life--the online course has its
advantages and disadvantages. Let us briefly inventory both:
Let us pause here and list the steps resulting in enrollment in
online courses:
Advantages:
2. Student sends me an unofficial copy of the transcript(s) of
their college coursework and a one page resume of their work
experience. I evaluate their submission and send them a plan
of study for the four year degree.
1. Students do not have to attend ‘live’ courses at a specified
geographic location at a scheduled time. Students do not have
to drive over busy expressways in rush hour traffic to get to
class on time. One of the great benefits of an online course is
its flexibility and convenience for students.
2. Students can work to support their families and attend
college part-time to advance their careers. They can travel to
meet the needs of their job and still stay in contact with the
survey course via the Internet.
3. Working in a survey-related job while taking online survey
courses accelerates mastery of the material.
4. Students in an online survey course experience a different
course atmosphere. The student population in a live course is
characterized by young people with limited survey experience.
The student population in an online survey course is composed
of licensed land surveyors, survey technicians with years of
experience, and traditional students with limited experience.
The students can learn from each other as well as the
instructor.
Disadvantages
1. Students must possess developed time management skills
and the motivation to spend the time necessary to master the
material in the course.
2. Students and professors are subject to the inevitable
breakdowns in the technology. For example, the Internet may
be down when an assignment is due.
3. Professors and students need to learn how to communicate
with each other effectively. Since meetings are not face to
face, they lack the visual cues that we depend on for effective
communication. Therefore, email and internet communications
have to be presented clearly and effectively without
assumptions. Some would view this as an advantage of the
online course--learning how to effectively communicate in a
digital world.
4. The development of an online course is much more involved
and time consuming than a live course. Therefore it is more
difficult to find adjunct professors to share their expertise in
the classroom due to the challenge of mastering the learning
theory and technology associated with the online course. We
are indeed fortunate to have the services of Mr. Steve Parrish
and Mr. Byron Johnson. They both share in the success of
Nevada’s Land Surveying/Geomatics Program.
3. Student applies for admission to GBC online, waits 24
hours, then registers for classes. Sometime during the week
before classes start, each student is loaded into their online
courses and gains access using login and password.
The typical online survey course is divided into fifteen weeks of
instruction. The online course is not a correspondence course.
Each week has learning objectives, study materials, and
opportunities to apply your knowledge in terms of assignments
to be turned in by the end of the week. Course material may
be presented in study guides, textbook reading assignments,
programmed self study modules, and or streaming videos of
classroom lectures. You may be required to submit a homework
assignment or take a short quiz each week.
Each survey course meets once a week in an Internet
classroom. This weekly meeting gives each student the
opportunity to ask questions about the course material and the
conduct of the course. It gives the students the opportunity
to get to know each other and share an online meeting place.
The Internet classroom is open 24-7. It is my professional
opinion that the Internet classroom was the missing piece
that fell into place in 2006 that enabled effective online survey
courses and the evolution of Nevada’s Program to its current
online platform. It provides us the opportunity to be together
as a class. And yes--students have the opportunity to give
presentations in the Internet classroom.
As we end our discussion--let us do a reality check. It is not
easy to become a licensed survey professional. Whether you
accomplish this task with or without a four year degree, the
path is characterized by a high commitment on the part of
the student or candidate to learn basic concepts and sound
practice. Therefore, you should expect that the online survey
courses in the Great Basin College Land Surveying/Geomatics
Program are challenging and demanding. Learning is never
easy and the more you have to learn the more difficult and
time consuming the task. I view my contribution as facilitating
the learning process to make it achievable for the greatest
number of students possible.
The future of survey education is difficult to predict. The
online course is in its infancy in terms of development. I have
spent the last six years teaching online survey courses. The
educational software is rapidly improving. With satellite
Internet connectivity it is now possible to reach the remotest
geographic locations in Nevada. Technology does have an
influence on how we do business. The Internet is now changing
how we do business in higher education. So we have to leave
it here and wait for history to be made. I predict that in just
a few years ahead we will have to agree that the online course
radically changed higher education.
In the next issue of The Nevada Traverse we will discuss
how to prepare for your studies in Nevada’s online Four Year
Degree Program.
U
The GBC online Land Surveying/Geomatics Program is
designed to afford maximum flexibility to students. A potential
student typically contacts me by phone or email to discuss
or announce their intention to pursue a four year degree
or accomplish specific survey coursework. After online
advisement resulting in a plan of study, the student typically
applies for admission to GBC and registers for their online
courses. The week before classes, the students are loaded into
their online courses and gain access with login and password.
1. The phone conversation or email contact letting me know
you are an interested student. This contact typically begins
the process of academic advisement.
Nevada’s Abandoned
Mining Site Dangers
By Carl C. deBaca, PLS
with contributions from Dylan Angus
Tragic Accident
On March 2, 2011, three off-duty employees working for a
contractor building a new geothermal power plant some fortyfive miles south of Battle Mountain, were taking in some
recreational exploration in the hills west of Jersey Valley. The
men were probably exploring the surface remnants of the
long-abandoned Rex mine, part of what the Nevada Bureau of
Mines and Geology, and The U.S. Bureau of Land Management
refer to as the Murphy Mine complex. The area was first
mined for copper in narrow underground tunnels or “stopes,” as
far back as 1895. This particular mine had been dormant and
abandoned since approximately 1945.
Photo is of the actual site where the accident took place.
The photographer is unknown.
Sometime in the afternoon, the three men discovered an old
opening into the mine. The opening was dug back into the hill
side, with a shaft entrance clearly visible from the surface.
The shaft itself was approximately 3’x5’, and was “shored up”
with timbers about every 6-8’ down to a depth of ± 100’. The
men were on the edge of the shaft peering down into it, trying
to decide if they could climb down and explore it. Suddenly,
28 year old Devin Westenskow lost his footing and fell into
the shaft, plunging headlong down a steep decline some 190
feet and coming to rest on the floor of a long-forgotten tunnel.
After he fell, the other two men attempted a rescue mission,
using a man basket and a length of 1.5” manila rope tied to
a tree outside the shaft. They did not have the proper safety
gear to attempt a descent into the shaft; i.e., climbing rope,
safety harness, etc., so they went for help. As anyone reading
this knows, once you leave the narrow corridor bracketing
Interstate 80, cell phone coverage is negligible throughout
northern Nevada. There is virtually no cell coverage in Jersey
Valley.
Though the accident site was actually in Pershing County, it
was very close to the Lander County line. A Sheriff ’s rescue
team from Lander County, stationed in Battle Mountain, was
much closer than any stationed in Lovelock, and was therefore
dispatched to the site. A mine rescue team was also sent
from the somewhat nearby Phoenix mine, an open-pit gold
and copper mine owned and operated by Newmont Mining
Corporation. The Phoenix team brought a camera designed to
be lowered down shafts and boreholes.
The Newmont mine rescue team tried to reach the victim by
rope descent but the narrow and unstable shaft, being 18 to
36 inches wide and containing much loose rock, prevented
the rescuers from getting any more than 150 feet down.
One climber’s helmet was split by a falling rock during the
descent. The camera was lowered down the hole during this
attempt and Westenskow was not spotted and the camera was
destroyed by falling rock. The rescuers made a second attempt
but that failed again.
Arriving later, a Washoe County search and rescue team
brought a camera with them that was designed to work in
sewers. This camera was lowered in the shaft to a point where
Westenskow’s prone body was spotted. The video camera
determined that the man was still breathing, and some motion
of his hands was discernable, but the images also revealed
serious head injuries. A decision was made to call off rescue
attempts and monitor the victim with the camera. Tragically,
there was no way to reach Westenskow; the team monitoring
the video camera had become a death vigil. On March 4 the
man succumbed to his injuries and passed away. Members of
his family by then had arrived on the scene and a priest had
given last rites. His body has not been retrieved.
Hazards and Safety Precautions
Nevada has an area of 109,826 square miles and a total
population of 2,700,000. This equates to a density of 24
inhabitants per square mile. The vast majority of the people
live in urban areas around Clark and Washoe counties. The
rest of the people are scattered around the state in several
small communities, most originally founded by people in
search of minerals and the wealth that finding them brings.
Historically, some of these communities have followed boom
and bust cycles associated with mining, and while there are a
couple dozen that are either doing pretty well at the present
time or at least hanging on, there are four or five times that
many that are reduced to ghost town or near ghost town status.
Many of these are ringed with abandoned mines. Towns such
as Ely, Tonopah, Dayton, Pioche, Virginia City, Eureka, Austin,
Dayton, Midas and Jarbidge owe their birth to miners, and
the hills surrounding each are veritable pincushions of old
tunnels, shafts, adits, stopes, diggings, tailings and other
hazards. The State Bureau of Mines estimates there are
between 265,000 and 350,000 abandoned mines in Nevada.
Just the spread between the low and high ends of this estimate
should give one pause to think. Each of these old mines poses
real danger to Nevada citizens and more specifically to our
surveyors. What happened to Devin Westenskow could happen
to any one of us.
When out in the hills and valleys of Nevada performing
cadastral, topographic, water- rights, archeological or miningrelated surveys, you have probably been much nearer to an
abandoned mine than you know. And if you are working on
boundary or construction-related surveys in any of the abovementioned towns, plus scores of others across Nevada, you
have undoubtedly been in proximity to such mine hazards.
To this date, only some 50,000 abandoned mines have been
cataloged by the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology and,
Mining Site Dangers... continued from previous page
of those, only some 10,000 or so have been fenced off, plugged
up or otherwise dealt with. No funding mechanism exists for
hunting these down and eliminating the hazards. Recently the
BLM received 1.5 million in federal stimulus dollars to spend
on abandoned mine closures in a few locations; a good start but
not nearly enough.
In my travels across the state, I have both recreated and
worked around hundreds of such mines in places like Ruth,
Midas, Hamilton, Aurora, Getchell, Candelaria, Spruce
Mountain, Como, Eureka, and the Battle Mountain range. I
can testify that the dangers these old mines pose are legion.
Underground there are falling hazards like the one that befell
Mr. Westenskow; also, tunnels supported by rotting timbers
that could collapse at any time, toxic fumes, pockets of gas,
pockets of deep water, rattlesnakes and boxes of long-forgotten
explosives that have become phenomenally unstable. On the
surface you can encounter unstable and unsafe buildings,
toxic waste dumps, still-liquefied tails with a consistency of
quicksand, and more rattlesnakes.
Plan Ahead for Safety
Are you out surveying? Make sure your office knows
where you will be working, at least generally, and when
you are expected back. Have a plan for calling in at
the end of the day (if you are lucky enough to find cell
service). While the latest generation of survey equipment
makes it easy to work alone, it’s not a good idea to hike
around old mining sites by yourself.
Are you out hiking, rock-hounding, taking photos? Make
sure someone knows where you are headed. Carry food,
water, first aid supplies, a length of sturdy rope and
navigation tools: handheld GPS, maps, compass, etc.
The author is Principal of Alidade Surveying in Elko, Nevada,
and also the NSPS Area 9 Director. He can be reached at:
[email protected].
Dylan Angus is a surveyor for Newmont Mining Corporation,
and also a member of the Phoenix Mine Rescue Team that was
called in on the Devin Westenskow rescue efforts.
U
With the current boom in precious, strategic and commodity
metals such as gold, silver, copper, molybdenum and lithium,
mining companies are exploring or re-exploring remote
areas throughout the state. Exploration eventually involves
surveyors and, being new to a site, we may not be completely
aware of the dangers around us. Whether out enjoying the
great outdoors in wide-open Nevada, or having no choice in
the matter because that is where your current survey project
has taken you, keep safety at the front of your mind as you go
traipsing around the sagebrush covered hills. I have literally
almost stepped into shafts of unknown depth on several
occasions while gazing about for some sign of a section corner
or claim post. These holes don’t all have head frames, spoils
piles or other tell-tale signs, and some are only a couple of feet
across. So be vigilant, look for signs of old diggings, and if you
find yourself among them for whatever reason, suppress the
urge to enter any old adits or tunnels, even just a few feet in is
too far with all the possible things that can go wrong.
Memoriam: Maurice
Eugene “Gene” Lafferty
Nevada PLS 1847
April 18, 1926 - January 2, 2012
town to its present location along the Humboldt River. In
the latter half of the decade, he relocated Great Basin Aerial
Surveys to Sparks, Nevada where the company produced
a great quantity of topographic mapping to support Sierra
Pacific’s expansion of the power grid to meet the demands of a
growing state. Early in the 80’s, he launched a collaborative
venture with Fischer Computers of California to develop
an interface board for micro-computers which allowed Wild
B-8 stereoplotters to digitally record data. He was the first
photogrammetrist in Northern Nevada to acquire an analytical
stereoplotter in the latter part of the decade. He finally retired
from Great Basin in the mid 1990’s and spent his remaining
years pursuing his favorite activities of gardening and antique
motorcycle restoration.
He is survived by his wife Carole; his daughter Sherry
Semiatin, husband Manny and daughters Alicia and Shania
of Santa Maria, California; his son William Lafferty, wife
Elvie, son Michael Lafferty and daughter Kimberly Lafferty of
Reno; his daughter Laurie Lafferty Waller, husband Richard,
daughters Rachel and Camilla of Arroyo Grande, California.
Thanks, Gene, for being a friend and mentor to so many of us,
and for your dedication to the betterment of the surveying and
mapping professions.
Larry Grube, PLS , Chief Photogrammetrist, Summit Engineering
U
T
he surveying and photogrammetric professions
were saddened to learn of the passing of Gene
Lafferty, PLS 1847, on the second day of the year
from complications due to flu and pneumonia. Gene never
faltered in his love of the professions and was an active
member of NALS, ACSM and ASPRS. His knowledge of the
Public Land Survey System was immense and he contributed
back to his profession through seminars and presentations.
Along with others, he was a founding member of the Nevada
Association of Land Surveyors and the Lahontan Chapter. He
was also instrumental in backing the formation of MAPPS,
the Management Association for Private Photogrammetric
Surveyors and encouraged NALS in joining WFPS, the Western
Federation of Land Surveyors in the first part of the 80’s.
He was a great innovator in the use of photogrammetric
methods for cadastral surveys before the advent of RTK GPS.
He used aerial photography to survey the boundaries of Death
Valley National Monument (now Park) and Olympia National
Park among others in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. He
was also the first subcontractor to provide the USBLM in the
mid 1980’s with meander data by photogrammetric methods
when he proposed the use of 1:24000 (1”=2000’) color infrared
photography to determine the mean high water along rivers
and lakes at various sites in Alaska. He also employed
the method of using 35 mm imaging of premarks from the
helicopters moving the survey crews to eliminate problems of
missing or destroyed targets during the aerial photography
mission for the same project.
Gene brought the practice of photogrammetry to Northern
Nevada when he joined Chilton Engineering in the early
1970’s where he supervised the mapping for the Elko Railroad
Relocation project that moved the tracks from the center of
Minimum Level of
Competency
By Joel Leininger, LS
W
e turn now to a subject that has annoyed me for
years, and shortly you shall see why. Discourse is, by
its very nature, most useful when the language used
moves the conversation in a helpful direction. But we have a
term in licensing that (to me) seems calculated to truncate that
conversation, smothering debate with a meaningless platitude.
Of course I am referring to the phrase, “minimum level of
competency.”
On the surface, and to the dimmer bulbs among us, the phrase
seems innocent enough. It usually is heard in response to
whether someone was qualified enough to be issued a license.
“Oh, well licensing is only designed to ensure a minimum level
of competency.” Ah yes, but what exactly is that? Confronted
with that question, nearly all responses begin (and end) with
a shrug of the shoulders or perhaps a long pause. You see,
not only is the term undefined, it will always remain so, for
it is indefinable. The vast number of situations potentially
confronting the licensed surveyor (and every other licensed
professional, for that matter) prevents anyone from compiling
an accurate laundry list comprising minimum compe
tence. Indeed, what may seem trivial to some, and therefore
appropriate for dispatch by our less competent brethren, may
well hide complexities that dwarf that of other projects.
From a distance it might seem as if some situations could be
relegated to less experienced people (and codified as such), but
how would that play out exactly? (We are entitled to exactness
in this discussion, for in most every case where the phrase under
consideration is tossed into the conversation, it is in response
to a question over licensing efficacy. When licensing itself is
examined, exactness is mandatory, as livelihoods are at stake.)
What are we assuming by saying that inexpensive property
requires less competence to survey? Perhaps because the
property is inexpensive, mistakes, even if serious, would not
require expensive remedies. Or perhaps inexpensive generally
means small, and smaller projects are easier to control (both
administratively and by traverse) than larger projects. This is
all speculation, of course, as no one has the answers to any
of this. But let’s address these two possibilities. Inexpensive
properties are no less prone to expensive mistakes, because
the seriousness of mistakes does not correlate to the property
value. If the survey was a boundary survey, the work necessarily
affects all of the adjoiners as well as the property itself. Are the
adjoining properties to be considered inexpensive as well? In
fact, the level of effort required to adequately survey a property
has never depended on its value. It depends instead on the
property’s age (speaking of boundaries here), on its accessibility
and on the quality of the written and field evidence defining its
boundaries. This is true whether it is appraised at $1,000 or at
$1,000,000. Indeed, I wish the market allowed us to structure
our fees based on the value of the property in question. I’d be
considerably better off, that’s for sure.
Task Analysis
NCEES has expended some effort in trying to identify the tasks
confronting newly licensed surveyors through its periodic task
analyses. Basically, the idea is to poll newly licensed surveyors
about the kinds of tasks they are facing, and then structure the
NCEES test accordingly. Am I the only one who sees the circular
logic in this? Are we to assume that because newly licensed
surveyors are engaging in certain tasks that those tasks are
the ones in which newly licensed surveyors are supposed to be
engaged? This is a wild stab at the minimum competence issue.
Wild stabs at something are okay when nothing else is available,
and as long as everyone involved remembers the attempt is, in
fact, a wild stab. The danger comes when everyone forgets the
tenuous nature of the underlying theory. A former boss of mine
used to talk of a SWAG (Scientific Wild A** Guess). That seems to
fit here.
Deep Roots and Long Tails
We would be foolish to assume that all newly licensed people
are as competent as they will ever be. Experience is an effective
teacher, and even old hands can be surprised. (I was shocked
recently by a title doctrine that is both pervasive and well
argued by jurists across the country, but unknown to me despite
30 years of practice. I haven’t decided yet whether I know
enough about its effects across the country to write about it or
not. Stay tuned.) Ours is a complex playground with deep roots
and long tails. Although every state recognizes that experience
is essential prior to licensure, clearly the presumption is that
the surveyor will continue to grow subsequent to getting his
green light. Thus, we presume varying levels of competence
among the licensed ranks.
But what is the minimum? I honestly cannot say. And I’m fairly
sure no one else can articulate it convincingly either. Thanks in
advance for never using the term with me.
Joel Leininger is a principal of S.J. Martenet & Co. in
Baltimore, Maryland.
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Inexpensive
I once had an attorney bravely try to answer my “what exactly
does that mean” question by saying that perhaps it meant (in
the realm of surveying) only working on inexpensive property.
Now, there is so much idiocy wrapped up in this definition that
I am tempted here to let it twist in the wind for a while and
accumulate its own ridicule, but as others may stumble upon
that definition in the absence of any other, we’ll examine it.
The notion that small properties are usually less expensive
than large properties is also silly. Some of the most expensive
real estate in the world comprises less than a city block
because it is part of a city block. Skyscrapers tend to live on
small parcels like that, and have some of the highest property
valuations anywhere. Swatting arguments down like this
is almost too easy. Enough picking on that poor attorney’s
argument. At least she proffered an idea, flawed as it was. Rarely
does anyone even go that far.
Erratum
Walking the Line
By James R. Bedard, PLS
In the prior issue of
The Nevada Traverse
Vol. 38, No. 4, 2011
The second paragraph of the article showed
incorrect figures of 400 miles and 250 kV.
It should have read 250 miles, and 500 kV.
My apologies to Stantec.
-Editor
UNR Earthquake Lab
Shakes Things Up CFA Surveyors Tie
It Down
By Kelly Lyttle, PE & Kevin German, PLS
project is underway at the University of Nevada, Reno
to investigate the seismic effects of multi-span curved
bridges using a 2/5 scale model of a three-span bridge.
The 145-foot-long, 162-ton steel and concrete bridge
was built atop four large, 14-foot square, hydraulic shake tables
in the University’s world-renowned Large-Scale Structures
Earthquake Engineering Laboratory. The testing of this model
is part of a larger project investigating seismic resilience,
funded by the Federal Highway Administration. The bridge
was designed by a team of eight graduate students under the
supervision of Ian Buckle and two other professors, Ahmad
Itani and David Sanders, in the Civil and Environmental
Engineering Department. The team includes project manager
Kelly Lyttle, and graduate research assistants Moustafa AlAni, Michael Levi, Eric Monzon, Ahmad Saad, Danielle Smith,
Chunli Wei, Joe Weiser and Hartanto Wibowo.
A
In March 2011, the University approached CFA, a Reno
firm, providing civil engineering, land surveying, planning,
and landscape architectural services to help them establish
precise locations of the bridge substructure, consisting of
two structural steel abutments and two reinforced concrete
columns. The bridge was built in three separate segments
outside the laboratory. Exact alignment of the supporting
elements was imperative for successful erection of the deck.
Restrictions on movement of the individual shake tables
meant that rotational alignment of the bolt patterns in the
abutments and columns heads had extremely tight tolerances.
While the shake tables can be adjusted in the X and Y axes to
help compensate for any misalignment, rotational tolerance
was limited to the difference between the bolts and their
corresponding holes.
CFA began their work by establishing control on the floor of
the lab using bronze plugs in tie-down holes located in the labs
nearly 3 foot thick strong floor. A Trimble S6 Robotic Total
Station was used to turn multiple angles and distances to each
control point. A least squares adjustment was done for the
observational data and residuals of just a few thousandths of a
foot gave CFA the confidence they needed to proceed with their
survey of the substructure. The tie-down holes, located on 24
inch centers throughout the lab, allowed CFA to establish their
spatial relationship within the laboratory using CAD files of
the building’s structural design. After fitting the CAD file to
the control network and performing a series of check shots on
the laboratory’s structure and shake tables, it was determined
the surveyors could locate their absolute position inside the
laboratory within 1/4”. Once this relationship was established,
CFA surveyed the position of the abutments and column heads
that were roughly positioned by the UNR bridge team by
triangulating off of the walls of the lab using a handheld laser
distance measurement tool.
Six different configurations are being tested (five have been
completed to date) to examine different components, including
column design (with and without conventional columns),
abutment design (with and without backfill behind the
abutments), seismic isolation (with and without response
modification devices) and the effects of live load. In the live
load tests, six full-size pickup trucks sit atop the bridge and go
along for the ride. During the most powerful test to date, the
trucks bounced and swayed as the bridge’s concrete columns
deflected more than 14 inches in each direction, the steel
girders twisted and the floor of the lab shook from the energy
applied to the bridge. The four, 50-ton capacity shake tables
simulated more than twice the strength of the 1994 Northridge,
California earthquake, which resulted in 33 deaths, 8,700
injured and $2 billion damage in southern California. The
ground acceleration of that quake was one of the highest ever
instrumentally recorded in an urban area in North America,
measuring 1.7 g (acceleration) with strong ground motion felt
as far away as Las Vegas, Nevada, more than 270 miles away.
Through computer programs, the recordings of the 1994 quake
control the hydraulically driven shake tables to simulate the
seismic event in the University’s lab.
Analysis of the data from the first five experiments is
underway, but the complete answer will come after months of
examining the many gigabytes of information gleaned from
the 400 sensors placed on the bridge and trucks. The results of
this work, titled “Seismic Effects on Multi-span Bridges with
High Degrees of Horizontal Curvature,” will be incorporated
into future industry design codes which will ultimately help
structural engineers design curved bridges to withstand the
effects of strong earthquakes. Currently, there are no design
regulations on horizontally curved bridges and the data from
this project will provide new insight on their behavior under
seismic loading.
The University of Nevada, Reno earthquake simulation facility
is managed as a national shared-use Network for Earthquake
Engineering Simulation equipment site, created and funded by
the National Science Foundation to provide new earthquake
engineering research testing capabilities for large structural
systems.
Please view the color construction and testing photos on
facing page.
For more information about the project and to see videos of tests,
visit nees.unr.edu/projects/curved_bridge.html.
U
Kevin German, PLS operated the total station on the ground
and turned rounds to the prism being held securely in place by
Party Chief Steve Larson who was secured with fall protection
gear perched atop the bridge’s substructure. Observations
were taken to a series of mounting bolts and studs using
specialty prisms and rods supplied by Monsen Engineering
of Reno. Since such tight accuracies were in order, an asbuilt survey of each of the bridge segments was performed.
The bridge segment data was then digitally assembled in
AutoCAD and overlaid onto the conceptual layout plan so that
any variances between design and fabrication could be taken
into consideration. Once each measurement was observed
from a minimum of two control points, a final analysis was
completed to determine how much each of the shake tables
needed to move in the X and Y axes for proper alignment of
the substructure elements. Once surveying was complete
and the final positions determined, the positions of the shake
tables and concrete columns were recorded to make column
replacement consistent for each turnaround.
Bridge Project Photo Gallery
Survey Party Chief, Steve Larson places a peanut prism into the mounting holes of the bridge during an asbuilt survey of the bridge structure.
Installation of the north bridge segment
Laboratory technician Chad Lyttle makes adjustments to sensor cables
in final preparations for earthquake engineering tests at the University of
Nevada, Reno’s Large-Scale Structures Lab. Photo by Mike Wolterbeek, University of Nevada, Reno.
Register Online at: www.californiasurveyors.org
Sustaining Members
Following is a listing of sustaining members of the Nevada Association of Land Surveyors. Please
remember that these firms and businesses, through their NALS membership, are supporting the aims
and objectives of our association.
Bruce L. Gandelman
California Surveying & Drafting Supply
5301-A Longley Lane, Suite 11
Mitchel E. Bartorelli
Tri-State Photogrammetry
4733 Auburn Blvd.
Reno, NV 89511
1925 E. Prater Way
Sacramento, CA 95841
(775) 826-4240
Sparks, NV 89434
Spencer B. Gross, Inc.
(916) 344-0232
(775) 358-9491



Surv-Kap, Inc.
H&S Positioning Nevada
P.O. Box 27367
4445 S. Valley View Blvd. No. 2
Tucson, AZ 85726
Las Vegas, NV 89103
(800) 445-5320
Ben Mallen
Trimble Navigation Limited
10355 Westmoor Drive
Westminster, CO 80021
(800) 432-8380

(720) 587-4576
Cartwright Aerial Surveys, Inc.


North American Mapping
Executive Airport, 5979 Freeport Blvd.
4011 W. Cheyenne Ave., Ste. B, No. Las Vegas, NV 89032
Sacramento, CA 95822
Berntsen International, Inc.
(702) 646-1732
(916) 421-3465
P.O. Box 8670
2175 Green Vista Dr., Suite 207, Sparks, NV 89431
www.casmap.com
(775) 673-6000 • Toll Free: (800) 473-0627
Madison, WI 53708
Toll Free: (800) 356-7388

[email protected]
Seco Manufacturing Company, Inc.


Kenney Aerial Mapping Inc.
4155 Oasis Road
3470 E. Russell Rd., Suite 208
Redding, CA 96003
AeroTech Mapping
Las Vegas, NV 89120
(530) 225-8155 • Fax (530) 225-8162
2580 Montessouri St., #104

(702) 228-6277 • Fax (702) 228-6753
Las Vegas, NV 89117
(702) 260-3033

Monsen Engineering, Inc.
5115 S. Valley View Blvd., Las Vegas, NV 89118
Dave Hamlin
Nevada Department of Transportation
(702) 220-6505 • Toll Free: (800) 821-0672
1263 S. Stewart Street
(775) 359-6671
1140 Financial Blvd. #400, Reno, NV 89502

Joe Schmidt
Holman’s of Nevada
Carson City, NV 89712
4445 S. Valley View Blvd., Ste. 2
(775) 888-7256
Las Vegas, NV 89103
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Lahontan
Chapter Report
Southern Nevada
Chapter Report
by David C. Crook, PLS, President
by Alan W. Dill, PLS, President
I
I
have been given the opportunity to serve once again as
the Lahontan Chapter President for 2012. As we move
into the new year there are a couple of things that were
going on with our chapter at the close of 2011.
t is an honor to serve as the Southern Chapter
President for 2012. I look forward to what we all hope
to be a year of positive economic news, better business
environments, and a renewed enthusiasm.
Our Christmas Party at Pinocchio’s was well attended and we
filled the room with 34 people. They put together a wonderful
Prime Rib buffet with all the fixings and the best bread pudding
for dessert. We are looking at scheduling this year’s party with
them again as well.
I think we would all agree that this organization is as important
as ever, and its role is critical the future of our profession. We
have some big challenges in finding ways to work the new four
year degree requirement, and get new blood.
Mike Miller and Kevin German have finished an updated
member’s email list to use for our meeting notices and event
mailings. We would like to let everyone know if you are a chapter
member and are not receiving your email notices, please contact
myself or one of these gentlemen to help us keep the list current.
The last portion of the Davidson Monument, the information
plaque, has been installed and the monument is now complete.
We would like to extend a special thanks for the time and efforts
of Paul Pace, Steve Parrish, Barbara Littell, and Matt Gingerich
of NALS, together with John Wilusz and Aaron Smith from
CLSA, on the project. Additionally, the assistance of Warren
Finke of Boomtown, and Nevada Energy for the equipment
and manpower to get it all installed, as well as those that made
monetary donations to help fund the purchases of the materials,
are gratefully acknowledged. If you are in the area, it is well
worth stopping in the see a bit of surveying history.
The Chapter made a $250.00 food donation to the Community
Outreach program before Christmas in conjunction with the
donation from CFA Reno. Thanks go out to Mike Miller and
Kevin German for coordinating the food donations with Scolari’s
Food and Drug.
We had a bit of a slow start this year getting things going and
our calendar put together. The first Chapter Meeting of the year
was held on Thursday, January 12, 2012, so the visiting State
Board Members could attend. Ray Hebert, our incoming State
Association President, made a great presentation on the State
of the State to get the year rolling.
Our regular monthly membership meetings will be held on the
2nd Wednesday of the month.
We did not have a student application for our $500.00 scholarship
last year, so we now have two $500.00 scholarships available to
a suitable student for the coming semesters.
Our Chapter Picnic is set for Friday, June 15, 2012 at Hidden
Valley Park. Bob LaRiviere and myself will be returning to the
grill. Bring your families for some great food, cold beverages,
and entertaining games.
The Lahontan Chapter Annual Golf Tournament has yet to be
scheduled. We had a good turnout at Wolf Run last year and
are discussing returning there again. Watch for the flyer to be
distributed via email.
We are fortunate in the Southern Chapter this year to have a
really strong and mixed group of board members. Gary Hancock
has returned as our President Elect, Sean Corkill returns as
Secretary, Jon Wooten returns as Treasurer, and Steve Deveny
returns as Director. Steve Gurlides (Past President) has dusted
off the cob webs to join us as a Director, along with Dennis
Layton, Doug Wood and Justin Silva as new Directors. Needless
to say it promises to be a rewarding year.
A special thanks goes out to Trent Keenan, Robert Carrington,
and Skip Harness for many years of great contribution and
leadership. We lose all of them this year and they will most
definitely be missed. Their contributions to this organization and
this profession are many, and they have all made a difference.
Trent of course has moved on to the State Board and will be an
asset.
Our returning Board members Sean Corkill, Jon Wooten,
and Gary Hancock, and Steve Deveny have all made huge
contributions to our education committee either through
teaching classes, making presentations, or spearheading a very
active Trig Star program, which before they became involved
was almost non-existent in the Southern Chapter area. They
deserve a special thanks as well. As the program continues to
grow, and more and more schools are getting involved. They
have also been very active in attending career fairs, which have
also proved to be a success. Thanks to all of you.
The “Bill Cuddy” Memorial Southern Chapter Picnic has been
scheduled for May 5th at Centennial Hills Park. We look forward
to another good one. It’s never too early to get the word out. No
beer for me this year.
One goal we would like to set this year is to get at least half of
the Southern Chapter Membership to a general meeting. I don’t
think we have achieved this for quite some time, so this would
be a nice goal to reach. Come join us! Bring your ideas on how
to make this happen more often.
The first General Membership meeting was held January 26th.
Plans are being made for presenters, and we have been working
with Bill Stone, the NGS Advisor, in hopes of getting him to
come speak on current CORS and NGS issues; but it looks like
we may have to wait until May based on his schedules.
If any of you have suggestions for presentations, or want to
present at one of our General Membership Meetings this year
you are encouraged to contact us.
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NALS Board of Directors Meeting
Friday, January 13, 2012 • Nevada State Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors • Reno, NV
MEETING MINUTES
Members Present:
James Bedard, Dave Crook, Alan Dill, Gary Hancock, Li Zhang
(non voting), Trent Keenan,
Matt Gingerich (non voting), Vern Little, Glen Armstrong and
Ray Hebert
Call to Order 9:24 am
Review and Approve Agenda Trent Keenan moved to
approve, Dave Crook seconded.
Motion Carried 7-0
Installation Of Officers
I.
Bob LaRivere
II.
Officer’s Reports
1.01
President
Ray Hébert
Written Report
11.02 President-Elect Vern Little
Written Report – Discussion of Parliamentary Rules
11.03 Secretary Glen Armstrong
Mailing list issues as discussed
Secretary of State filing – Completed
Resident Agent – Needs to be changed
1.04 Treasurer
Trent Keenan
Pay Pal discussion
2012 Budget Projection is balanced
Motion to approve Budget James Bedard moved to approve,
Allan Dill seconded
Motion carried
7-0
III.
Standing Committee Reports
13.1 Constitution and Bylaws
Glen Armstrong
No report
13. Membership Chapter Presidents
Alan Dill – Add 10 more members by the end of the year
Ray Hebert – How to get more students as members
Send letter out to members
13.3 Continuing Education
Chapter Presidents
RS-2477 Brent Lane possible 4 hour class
Ideas for two state sponsored classes
13.4 Advanced Education
Dr. Jim Elithorp
No Report
13.5 Scholarships
Li Zhang
Written Report
Discussion of NSPS foundation
13.6 Legislative Brett Lane
No Report
13.7 Publications – The Nevada Traverse
Terry McHenry
Written Report
Motion Glen Armstrong motioned to keep ‘all surveyors’ as
print with two digital issues and two print, keep ad rates the
same. Vern Little seconded.
Motion carried 7-0
13.8 Conference Nancy Almanzan
13.8.2 2012 CLSA/NALS – Reno, NV
13.8.3 2013 CLSA/NALS-Reno, NV
13.8.4 2014 NALS
Written Report
13.9 Ethics
Glen Armstrong
No Report
13.10 Communications
Vern Little
Written Report
13.11 High School Outreach
Jerry Juarez
13.11.1 Trig StarJerry Juarez
Written Report
13.11.2 Career Fairs
Ray Hébert & Sean Corkill
Written Report
13.12 Advanced Technology
Ray Hébert
Written Report
13.13 Nominations
Chapter Presidents
IV.
Special Committee Reports
14.1 Great Basin Chapter
Carl CdeBaca
Written Report
14.2 Lahonton Chapter
Dave Crook
Written Report
NALS State Board of Directors Meeting continued from previous page
It’s All About TECHNOLOGY?.. continued from page 8
14.3 Southern Nevada Chapter
Alan Dill
Written Report
Motion Les McFarlane as a Life member Alan dill
motioned to approve, Trent Keenan seconded
Motion carried 7-0
Mr. Warden, who adjoined to the east could tell us nothing
about the boundary. He was an expert, however, on who
married whom, when, and even why! By providing him with an
appreciative audience, we got all the local history complete with
dates and plenty of background - the man had a phenomenal
memory. Mr. Warden claimed that Lucy Hawkins had been deeded
her land twenty years before Abner Hawkins died. “James
Johnson married Lucy Hawkins in 1938 and he lost everything he
had, gambling, not more than a year later - 1939 it was, I’m sure.”
Mr. Warden said.
14.4 Western Federation of Professional Surveyors
Nancy Almanzan & Matt Gingerich
14.4.01 TWIST program
Written Report
14.5 National Society of Professional Surveyors
Paul Burn
Written Report
14.6 Historical Tim Wolf
Written Report
14.7 Past President’s Forum
Li Zhang
Li Zhang to follow up on the past president meeting at the
conference. Email list of past presidents.
14.8 NALS Executive Board Guidelines
Matt Gingerich
Written Report on CD
14.9 LSI & Associate Members Forum
Alan Dill
No Report
14.10 NSPS Foundation Brett Jefferson
No Report
14.11 CST Program Paul Burn
No Report
14.12 NSPS Area 9 Director
Carl CdeBaca
No Report
V.
Unfinished Business
Nevada Traverse Scanning Project
VI.
New Business
Review 2011 Board Meetings & Calendar
Still tabled
Working is calendar acceptable
Accounting file needs to go to the CPA’s
VII.
Adjournment
2:00 pm Motion to adjourn Glen Armstrong, Gary Hancock
seconded.
Motion carried 7-0
“Abner and Sadie didn’t want their kin with no where to live, so
they deeded enough land for a farm to Lucy -not her husband
- in July of 1940. James wouldn’t let her take the deed to the
courthouse because then everyone would know that Abner and
Sadie had deeded the land only to Lucy. James didn’t have much
luck at gambling, but he had plenty of pride.”
On the way back to the office, Ted was bored. “We spent two
whole hours talking to folks who otherwise don’t see a living soul
except at church on Sunday. In the time it took to do that, I could
have run all around the place with the GPS unit and got some hard
data.”
I adjusted my patient look. “Let’s look on the bright side,” I said.
“Mr. Powell knew where his corners were and was delighted
that we asked before we began work. Mrs. Oakley explained why
the Fox deed calls for blazed trees at the corners and her deed
doesn’t. Mr. Warder told us why we couldn’t find the Lucy Hawkins
Johnson deed. If he is right, then the Fox parcel is senior to all
the adjoiners. Otherwise, as heirship property, all the parcels were
created simultaneously. The question of seniority has a marked
impact on boundary retracement whether we do the retracement
electronically or with a transit and tape. Apart from that, our trip
through the neighborhood was good public relations. Earlier
today you said surveying was all about technology. You need to
rethink that. Our precise GPS work at the first job today would
have been less than correct if we hadn’t known about scale and
elevation factors. That was a question of map projections. The map
we made of the shopping mall would have been just plain wrong
if we hadn’t rotated and translated data. That was a question of
math. Finally, if we had just gone to measuring and neglected to
talk and to listen to the people, there is a very good chance we
would have put a boundary line in the wrong place. That was a
matter of common sense. Surveying does involve measurement
and it does involve technology, but it also involves land, and more
importantly, people. No matter how we measure, our measurements
won’t count unless they are made in the correct place. And that is
the difference between hard data and data that is hardly right.”
As seen in the Missouri Surveyor, Dec. 2010
Reprinted from Backsights & Foresights, the official publication
of the South Dakota Society of Professional Land Surveyors, Vol.
21, No. 4, Nov. 2011.
U
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NSPS Report
especially being an inaugural, and we anticipate an even larger
and more comprehensive occasion this year. More details will
be forthcoming soon.
Lastly, please allow me to ask for your help. Membership has
declined in all organizations of all professions, certainly. But
By Paul Burn, PLS
NSPS is our only national voice. Engineers and others have
Nevada NSPS Governor
some choices, which results in multiple memberships, or some
being skipped. For us, we must support efforts like those above,
G
reetings Surveyors! I hope this finds you well, and busy
forging forward. In a departure from the normal report
that you may be accustomed to reading in this column,
I’m going to defer to the report that our Area 9 Director, Carl
CdeBaca has written, which sheds a rather comprehensive
light on the current affairs of our national organization. I
have contributed and collaborated some, but Carl wrote this
report back in December, and after discussing with our muchrespected editor, we decided that his updated report would
glean a factual and enlightening description of the happenings
both within and outside the organization.
With that in mind, I’ll just mention some points that I brought
group. We in Nevada, being one of the states’ most severely
affected by the economy, have fallen behind most of the other
states by percentage of PLS’s that are members of NSPS.
I’m asking you to consider being a member, or re-consider
continuing as a member if you have not yet done so. Yes, this
year you’ll have to go to the website (NSPSMO.ORG) to get
your membership completed, unlike previous years. I expect
joint billing with NALS to resume next year, but now, right now,
we need your input. The organization needs your opinion, your
involvement, your interest, but primarily your membership.
The functions that benefit you are many; please try to find a
way!
U
forth at the Southern Chapter January general meeting that
and many more that are ongoing, in our one major representing
I think are worth remembering. In the last year, despite the
major distraction of the re-organization of NSPS and the
related groups, the business of NSPS has pushed forward. You
may remember the issue of the 3% withholding on Federal
contracts, which was slated to affect Professional Land
Surveying. Through continued efforts of NSPS, via the Joint
Government Affairs Committee (JGAC) and our lobbyist,
Laurence Socci, this regulation has been avoided for our
profession. You may also remember that it was one of our three
major Lobby Day talking points in last year’s effort. It looks
like all these efforts have certainly paid off
.
Next, the recent good news on LightSquared’s difficulties is
well-received in our community. While there are many larger
major players in the opposition, NSPS and several of our
related organizations have been contributing all along the
way, in a quite effective manner, to this current condition. Note
that the fight is not over, but the tides have turned against the
company and their well-heeled Hedge Fund ownership, and,
for now, results of real testing are what is being reviewed. This
does not bode well for the scenario that they’ve been putting
forth in the last year, as actual data doesn’t lie, and if it can’t be
manipulated, the genuine is being shown and being digested.
I’d also like to remind everyone of the Survey USA function,
to be held toward the end of March (it might even coincide
with our state NALS conference!). Last year’s event was huge,
BLM Accepted Surveys
Surfing the Edge... continued from page 7
“Our collective failure to translate conscious awareness into
effective organizational response is captured in the declining
survival rate of the Fortune 500 over the past 25 years……..
why didn’t they remain on the list? Truer to Darwin’s theories
than we would wish, learning and proactive response did not
take place. A significant percentage of organizations failed to
mobilize the level of response needed to sustain ourselves”.5
What are we doing as a profession to sustain ourselves?
To understand this, you need to learn about fire ants that live
and thrive in South America (again, stay with me here, it gets
really interesting). In the mid- 1930s, just before the outbreak
of World War II, naturalist Richard Conniff documented over
50 years of study of survival rates of fire ants. He thought
it was remarkable that the species continued to thrive and
prosper even when faced with extreme change and constant
threats of eradication.
Are we elevating the discourse among our employees in the
business? Are we challenging the process among our peers at
local association meeting or other business gatherings? Are we
advancing ourselves toward new ways of business modeling,
strategic planning or simple forecasting? As employees, are
YOU initiating discussions about the processes and prevailing
“norms” with your manager? As a business owner, are YOU
engaging in creative discussions about how to examine your
own areas of “familiarity” and explore new ingredients for
success and innovation? Are you thinking about reading this
book?
To date the fire ant population has proliferated to occupy 260
million acres in eleven states of our country, following its first
initial entry in Miami, FL. It is considered to be among the
top 100 worst invasive alien species by the World Conservation
Unit. Because of the painful sting of the ants venom, and the
“pack mentality” of the ants swarm attack, eradication efforts
have been strong and swift. Toddlers have fallen into ant
mounds and died of their stings. Packs of fire ants have been
known to kill newborn animals, even large calves. Fire ants
threaten entire colonies of living systems – no one is immune
to their attack.
We can’t stop the waves of the ocean from churning up the
seas, but we also cannot sit idle in the comfort of the calm
seas of the ocean, that place of “equilibrium balance” I talked
about earlier. We need to find the sweet spot – that place on
the edge of chaos that allows us the freedom and excitement
to look ahead, to question and explore, and to use our natural
born DNA to examine ways to reinvent ourselves and sustain
high levels of responsiveness and nimbleness that will help us
survive and thrive.
So how have these ants managed to multiply and thrive in the
face of $172 million pesticide campaigns to eliminate them?
It all comes down to our basic need for survival. The fire ant
thrives on the edge of chaos.
“The point is: over time (and even concurrently), organizations
need evolution and revolution. When they have been limited
exclusively to the restrictive precepts of social engineering,
they have been handicapped and largely unsuccessful in
unleashing authentic revolutionary change. The principles of
living systems offer a powerful new recourse. The trick is to
clearly identify the nature of the challenge and then use the
right tool for the right task”.6
Surfing the Edge of Chaos – Finding the Sweet Spot
So here we are – at the crest of the wave of what this article is
all about. If you have made it this far, then I commend you for
committing yourself to exploring a business topic that could
change the way you do business, and could have deepening,
positive impacts on our profession. And if you have made
it this far, I strongly urge you to read the book, as it offers
extensive insight into case studies of Sears, IBM, Amazon,
Monstanto, Hewlett Packard, Intel and others who have made
a transformation, or experienced a revolution, out of their
control, but they responded, survived and thrived.
The ant colonies have a set of rules – according to decades of
research by leading naturalists – that are quickly analyzed
and modified when a new threat emerges. The assaults by the
US Department of Agriculture didn’t thwart them. In fact, the
pesticide killed many of the ant colonies, but also eradicated
other natural living systems around it (plants, insects,
livestock, family pets, etc.). But in a very short period of time,
the fire ants rebounded at alarming speed compared to other
living systems equally affected. Why?
“When the environment becomes outright hostile (that is,
nearer to chaos), surviving colonies strive to rebuild their
army of workers, which occasionally triggers warfare between
colonies”8. Weaker ant colonies join forces with stronger
colonies, adapting their systems to the stronger group, but
allowing it to become more powerful by shear force of numbers.
Life on the edge of chaos as a way of fostering innovations that
keep a species, or a profession, surviving.
“Human beings aren’t ants, and organizations aren’t ant
colonies. But when productive agitation runs high, innovation
often thrives and startling breakthroughs can come about.
This elusive much-sought-after sweet spot is sometimes called
“a burning platform”. The living sciences call it the edge of
chaos”9.
So, is the edge of chaos a real place? Not really. It is a state of
being, a place where order and disorder flow in tandem. There
is nothing finite about it. Getting yourself on the edge of chaos
means you are creating upheaval within your business, but not
dissolving it. That is why, as stated in the book, the edge is so
important. “The edge is not the abyss. It’s the sweet spot for
productive change”.7
Innovation does not emerge from stability. The edge of chaos
is fertile ground to explore new ideas, break apart ‘status quo’
systems and rules, and re-vamp business models to explore
new specialty niches. In surveying we often speak of the “ghost
in the machine” when we refer to GPS technologies. The ghost
in nature’s machine seems to always steer us toward the edge,
to get us to see things in new and different ways. To make us
better. To make us stronger. To make us a force to reckon with
in our design professions.
Surfing the Edge of Chaos, page 35
7
8
5
6
9
sessions that took place in 2011, it became clear that another of
the member organizations was unhappy with the direction that
NSPS was headed, and near the end of the year GLIS announced
that they would not be joining the new unified NSPS and would
be going their own way in 2012.
NSPS Area 9
Director’s Report
By Carl C. deBaca, PLS
A
s of April 28, 2012, if there are no more last-minute
hiccups, the NSPS and the ACSM will be merged into
a single organization. This marks the culmination of
a two-year process initiated in Phoenix by a vote of the NSPS
Board of Directors to withdraw from the ACSM. That vote, while
virtually unanimous, was highly controversial and kicked off
much acrimonious debate among longtime ACSM members. Here
was a noble organization with some six decades of achievement
being consigned to the dustbin of history. Ultimately, from the
standpoint of the NSPS at least, the structure of the ACSM
proved unworkable. It was organized as a congress with each
member organization having two delegates, i.e. votes. As
recently as 2008, four related geospatial groups made up ACSM.
NSPS had over ninety percent of the total ACSM membership,
but only twenty-five percent of the votes.
NSPS was not the only M.O. to find the structure frustrating
and unsatisfactory to its membership. CaGis kicked off the
inevitable disintegration by deciding in 2007 to leave ACSM
and go its own way, a process that was finalized in 2009, leaving
ACSM with three M.O.s thereafter. At that point NSPS had
ninety-four percent of the membership but only thirty-three
percent of the votes. Given the financial troubles that ACSM
was continuously facing, the leadership of NSPS finally floated
the idea in Phoenix of withdrawing from ACSM, which was in
my opinion, a polite way of calling for its elimination. As noted
previously, the NSPS board of directors thus voted to start the
withdrawal process.
After a year or so of painful self-appraisal and endless
strategizing, it looked in 2011 as if we had a plan to go forward
into the future as a single reorganized society. While the
initial discussion centered on elimination of the ACSM through
dissolution, legal advice in 2011 steered us towards merger,
allowing NSPS to legally assume all official ACSM functions,
positions and relationships. The plan was to complete the
merger by December 31, 2011, at which point the ACSM, as
a functioning organization, would cease to be. During the
committee meetings, discussions and overall strategizing
Just a couple weeks before the end of the 2011 we encountered
a series of obstacles that will extend the merger completion
to the end of April 2012. Certain legal niceties require that
the congress meet one last time and vote to complete some
unfinished business.
One unfortunate side effect of this delay in the merger is that of
the 2012 NSPS budget. Since the ACSM could not shut down at
year’s end and must continue to exist until April 28, it requires
operating expenses for that period. Those expenses will come
almost entirely from the NSPS budget, which is already facing
some financial difficulty.
The sustained economic downturn has had an effect on the
NSPS just as it has had an effect on your profession, your
company and you. Times are hard and people, agencies and
companies are cutting back on their expenses. This translates
to a diminishing membership and decreasing financial support.
Our membership has dropped measurably over the past four
years. Attendance at our annual conferences is dropping and
support by vendors is decreasing as well. There are two primary
revenue streams for an organization such as NSPS: the first is
membership; the second is revenue gained from our annual
conference. The decision last year to have the conference as a
joint affair with the ESRI Survey Summit was an attempt to
stabilize the conference costs. While we did not make any profit
from the 2011 conference, at least we did not lose money. This
year the conference will again be in San Diego, but after that it
is still to be decided. In the coming months we will no doubt be
debating the future of the annual conference.
During the coming months as our merger and reorganization
proceeds, we will be moving our central office from Gaithersburg,
Maryland to Frederick, where we have found larger, more
modern and significantly less expensive quarters. For the time
being, our annual student competitions, which were previously
a significant component of our annual spring conferences, will
be held in conjunction with a state conference somewhere. This
year it will be held with the Professional Land Surveyors of
Oregon conference. We will also be sharpening our pencil with
respect to FIG delegate travel costs and any other areas where
we can save money.
This coming year, Robert Dahn of Connecticut will accede to
the presidency of NSPS. He is a natural ally of us westerners
and deserves our complete support in his year as president. No
doubt it will be a challenging year for Mr. Dahn. The governor
from Connecticut, Rick Howard will occupy the chair of the
Board of Governors and Mark Sargent, the governor from New
Hampshire will take over the BOG secretary duties. These are
two hard working and dedicated governors who will continue
NSPS Area 9 Director’s Report.. continued from previous page
Surfing the Edge... continued from page 29
the tradition of solid leadership at the Board of Governors.
“As long as one operates in the middle of things, states science
writer William Thompson, one can never really know the
nature in which one moves”10. Like the edge of the horizon at
sea, or the edge of a mountain cliff, or the edge of the Grand
Canyon itself, or the edge of danger our teenagers race toward
every day, we as human beings are naturally drawn to it. It
distinguishes our position in life. It grounds us in a way so
that we know what direction we are looking. But we have to go
the step further, especially today as the digital world threatens
our very existence, and learn how to navigate the edge without
going over, but also without standing still.
The nomination committee has seen fit to place Patrick Smith,
the NSPS governor from Texas and outgoing chair of the Board
of Governors, on the ballot this year for Vice-President. I
encourage all NSPS members in Area 9 to vote for Pat and give
him your complete support. I think he is an outstanding choice
for future president of the organization.
Business at the Fall Meetings in Gaithersburg November 3-5,
2011
At the fall meeting, the governor from New York, brought forth
a motion, passed with nearly no dissent, to develop a strategy
for making all of the members of all the state societies members
of NSPS. That this came from the governors is significant in
that it means that the states are beginning to recognize that
we are better off if we all hang together. While the path to such
universal membership is littered with obstacles, the idea is a
noble one, and points to a way forward for all of us.
As a leader in the field, if you sense complacency within the
field, or your personal business, if you sense dormancy in new
ideas or new ways of working, then it is you that needs to grab
your surfboard and head out to the waves and see what is out
there. The new material does NOT have to be invented. It
is already there – in our staff, our peers, our association, our
profession. We have to mill these ideas, we have to challenge
our ways of thinking, and we have to “shake the snow globe” a
little to make sure we are always riding our edge.
There will be tension and there will most certainly be debate.
But the “realm of uncertainty and discomfort maximizes our
ability to awaken new ideas and unleash new potential”11.
Let’s come together at NYSAPLS events and meetings and
begin this re-awakening process. It will be an amazing
discovery, a life changing experience, for all of us.
Steve Boddecker, PLS is president of NYSAPLS and survey
manager for Fisher Associates, Buffalo. He is participating in
a year-long executive leadership institute where this book was
a cornerstone of business thinking, discussions and study. The
book he has referenced throughout this article is called Surfing
the Edge of Chaos, The Laws of Nature and the New Laws of
Business, by Richard Pascale, Mark Millemann, and Linda Gioja.
Reprinted with permission from the Empire State Surveyor, the
official publication of the New York State Association of Professional
Land Surveyors, Vol. 46, No. 6, Nov./Dec., 2011.
U
This past fall our Lobby Day was focused, as you might
imagine, on addressing the threat to high precision GPS posed
by LightSquared, whose planned deployment of some 40,000
terrestrial based transmitters would virtually eliminate
our ability to use GPS for surveying. We had other issues to
discuss with congress, such as asking for funding for height
modernization efforts by NGS, coastal mapping legislation,
preservation of railroad monumentation and Federal land
survey modernization, but as we told our legislators, if we don’t
solve the first problem, there’s not much point considering the
others. There were thirty or more individuals involved in Lobby
Day this year and I think we were pretty successful at getting
our message through. I, together with our NSPS governor, Paul
Burn and the proxy California governor, Aaron Smith paid visits
to three senators and two representatives during the course of
the day. A special mention must be made of our visit with Nevada
Senator Dean Heller, who chatted with us about LightSquared,
railroad monumentation and BLM survey modernization for
twenty minutes and seemed to take the issues to heart. Senator
Heller brought along a member of his staff who specialized in
science and technology issues. This staffer was already very
knowledgeable about the ethical issues involving LightSquared
and the FCC, and was very attentive to the information we
provided. After Lobby Day it was discussed that our position
on LightSquared has several strong supporters in the Senate
including Grassley from Iowa and Roberts from Kansas,
and now hopefully, Heller from Nevada. It was noted that in
2011, LightSquared retained the services of twelve different
high profile public relations firms and has spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars in the DC area bombarding the airwaves
and print media with advertisements of all the benefits of their
4G plan. Apparently none of the ads mention the death of GPS.
As referenced in this book, President John F. Kennedy did
not have any solutions to the problems posed by his desire to
put a man on the moon. That wasn’t his point. He wanted
the country to move toward the edge of a new future, to rally
behind a new world of possibility and exploration. Once
committed to that new goal, the armies of followers would
create innovative ideas to get that vision accomplished. Just
like Kennedy, it will take us as leaders of businesses large and
small, to push the envelope of what we can accomplish, what
we can do, how we can do it better, in order to create a new
vision for the profession that propels us forward and along the
way sparks fires inside the young generations of students to
follow our lead, to follow in our footsteps, as we so often quote.
10
11
As always, your input is important to me and to the NSPS. If
you have ideas, suggestions, questions or complaints, feel free to
contact me at [email protected]
Surfing the Edge of Chaos, pg 108-109.
U
The President’s Report. continued page 5
AB102 - PLS Applicants that do not have a surveying degree
that were approved by the Board to sit for the professional
examination prior to July 1, 2010, have until August 1, 2014 to
pass the exam.
NAC625.631 - Registration Board’s regulation for Firm
registration.
And NAC 625.545 - Written contract required for each client.
Before performing any work, a licensee shall enter into a
written contract with each client for whom the licensee will
perform work. The written contract must include without
limitation, provisions specifying: 1) The scope of work; 2)The
cost for completion of the work; and 3) The anticipated date for
the completion of the work. Many thanks go out to our NALS
Lobbyist, Bruce Arkell and Brett Lane, our Nevada Legislative
Chair.
Davidson Monument - NALS and CLSA in a joint effort
completed the restoration of the monument set by George
Davidson in 1872. This monument was recovered from the site
during construction at Cabellas near Verdi, Nevada. It was one
of the monuments established in connection with astronomical
observations used to set the north south California/Nevada
boundary. A write up will be forth coming in the Traverse. Paul
Pace was instrumental in seeing this project through.
Unfortunately, due to economic constraints, the NALS
State Board had to dismiss our Executive Secretary, Linda
Armstrong in 2011. This is something we really didn’t want
to do because we knew that we would have to absorb all the
work that the Executive Secretary was performing. Needless
to say the NALS Board members have stepped up to the plate,
doubling their duties. We have been able to stay in the black
and we are very hopeful for 2012.
The website until recently has been under the direction of
Expert Website, but due to their inattention, it will now be
migrated to Network Servants. This is a great move as we will
now have more ability to update the site and make it more user
friendly.
NALS is also involved in the NSPS (National Society of
Professional Surveyors), a unified organization that strives
to establish and further common interests, objectives and
political efforts that would help bind the surveying profession
into a unified body in the United States. Most recently NSPS
has been lobbying Senators and Representatives regarding
LightSquared, Rail road Monumentation and Federal Land
Modernization Surveys. Additionally, NSPS is overseeing the
absorption of ACSM into NSPS. Regarding Lightsquared,
it appears that we may have a little breathing room here.
It seems that Congress put legislation in the Defense
Authorization Act that was just passed preventing the FCC
from lifting restrictions and granting further permissions to
LightSquared until the interference issue has been resolved to
the satisfaction of a number of congressional committees and
the DOD. LightSquared could go broke before that happens.
We need to keep applying pressure, as necessary. We will keep
everyone apprised per our “email blasts”.
Closer to home, NALS is involved in The Western Federation
of Professional Surveyors (WFPS). This is a regional nonprofit organization composed of land surveyor associations
representing the 13 Western states, including Alaska and
Hawaii. Formed in 1979, WFPS is dedicated to education,
fostering common goals within the western states and
providing a regional voice at the national level. WFPS acts as
a clearing house for interstate communication and sponsors
a biennial conference for Surveyors. Currently, NALS is
supporting the TWIST program, sponsored by West Fed and
hopes to be involved in the program when funds become
available. Essentially, it’s a week long program taught to
teachers, about surveying that they can then use to teach
children the benefits of mathematics for practical uses like
surveying.
NALS is busy lobbying students for Career Days in all three
chapters. In the last year we visited over fourteen High
Schools all over Nevada between the three chapters. This is in
addition to the Trigstar Program. Please offer your time in this
effort as it is rewarding.
This year Steve Parrish, on behalf of NALS, presented “A
Surveyor in Court,” a closer look into the cause and effect of
land surveying errors in the real world. The presentation took
in 28 people in northern Nevada and 25 people in southern
Nevada.
Last but not least we have gone from a NALS land line to a
Cell phone. The old phone number (775) 624-6257 (NALS)
will be migrated to the NALS cell phone. Until such time the
temporary number (775)-848-1960 may be used to contact the
current State president. As in every year, in accordance with
our CBL’s, all three chapters and the State vote new officers in
place. This is done in order to invigorate the chapter and state
boards with new thoughts, ideas and of course fresh insight.
Please find included in this article a listing of the 2012 Board
of Directors and Committee Chairs.
Goals for 2012
We certainly have quite a few things happening in our
association for 2012. The Standing Committee’s have their
respective marching orders and are wonderful at representing
you, our membership in the items listed.
So, that being said what are the goals for 2012?
Membership Drive: I think on the fore front of issues is
membership. We had a major decline in membership and we
need to get our numbers back up. Everyone should talk to your
staff, office, colleagues and see if we can add just one person to
our association. If that was true from the publication roster
alone we could double our membership. Remember that we
have several type of memberships: Regular, LSI, Associate,
Student, Sustaining, Life and Corresponding Members. Some
are only a small amount like students $25, up to regular
members, $115. See what you can do to help your organization,
we do make a difference. Additionally, I would like to ask for
your support for NSPS. They are our voice across the United
States. They are fighting for our collective. Without them, I
am afraid we may be assimilated.
Conference Drive: The conference this year is at the Silver
Legacy in Reno on March 23rd through the 28th. We should
make every effort to not only go to the conference but
President’s Report... continued from previous page
encourage others to go as well. See what you can do to help
support our organization. A good deal of money can be realized
by a good conference. CLSA and NALS are partnered to
provide you a better cross section of presenters. We are looking
ahead to 2014 at
possibly running
a three state
conference. Help
us by being there.
for chapter directors, chairs and officers. Maybe you have a
desire to sit on the NALS State Board. It is a very rewarding
gift to see the whole process work, meet new people, learn new
things and understand the surveying world from a different
perspective.
There are many
other goals which
will present
themselves as we
proceed through
the year.
Website: We are
in the process of
revamping the
website. The
effort is to make
it a friendlier
site. We would
like to hear from
you regarding
possible
improvements.
Right now we
are focusing
on getting Pay
Pal to work
better updating
your account
information so
our email and
mailings go to
the correct area.
Also we would
like to add a
whole new tab
that includes
“The Nevada
Traverse,” past
through the
present issues
which will be
scanned and
uploaded.
Legislative
Binders:
This year we
would like to
create updated
Legislative
Binders. Due
to the changes
in laws and
statutes over the
years, most of
our binders are
out of date. The
new information
from the Legislative Counsel Bureau should become available
sometime this January. Brett Lane will be focusing putting
together the new binders at an affordable cost.
I would like to
send out a special
thank you to the
2011 State Board:
Vern Little, Glen
Armstrong and
Trent Keenan,
for working so
hard when things
became difficult
last year to get
us to the point we
are at now. And
an exceptional thank you goes out to Li Zhang for guiding our
organization for the 2011 season, and for continuing on in the
chairs for 2012.
Lastly, thank you to all our membership and with the help of
our new board and officers we look forward to a productive and
educational 2012 with the NALS.
U
Nominations: This year we should try to reach out to new
people within our organization. Invite students, colleagues,
associates, field personnel, contractors and vendors to our
association meetings. You yourselves may want to volunteer
In closing, I
would like to take
this opportunity
to say thank
you to all the
Chapter Officers
for 2011; James
Ellithorp, James
Bedard, Kevin
Altmeter, Jason
Castro, Kevin
German, Trent
Keenan, Alan
Dill, Sean Corkill,
Jon Wooten;
2011 Standing
Committeee
Chairs: Trent
Keenan, Terry
McHenry, Nancy
Almanzan
and Jerry
Juarez; Special
Committee
Chairs, Nancy
Almazan, Matt
Gingerich,
Aland Dill, Brett
Jefferson, and
Carl C. deBaca.
Nevada Association of Land Surveyors
P.O. Box 20522 • Reno, NV 89515
Ph: 702.624.NALS (6257) • www.nv-landsurveyors.org
APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP
2012
(Effective January 2012)
Name:
Firm/Employer:
Business Phone:
Mailing Address:
Fax:
City:
State:
Zip:
Home Phone:
Mailing Address is: o Business
o Residence
Email:
Other Professional Registrations:
PLS Number (if applicable):
STATE ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIP: Add your Initiation Fee amount to
the Annual Dues amount and enter the sum in the TOTAL AMOUNT column.
Initiation
Fee
o REGULAR MEMBER: Any person holding registration as a Professional Land Surveyor in $
25.00
o L.S.I. MEMBER: Any person holding a certificate as a Land Surveyor Intern in the State
$
25.00
o ASSOCIATE MEMBER: Any person who, in their profession, relies upon the fundamen-
$
$
the State of Nevada.
of Nevada
tals of land surveying and is sponsored by a Regular Member of the Association.*
o CORRESPONDING MEMBER: Any person holding registration as a professional land surveyor in another state, and who desires to receive correspondence from the Association, including The Nevada Traverse.
o STUDENT MEMBER: Any person who is a student in a college or university and is
actively pursuing a survey-related education, and is sponsored by a Regular Member of
the Association.*
o SUSTAINING MEMBER: Any individual, company, or firm who by their interest in the land surveying profession is desirous of supporting the purposes and objectives of the Association.
Total
Amount
115.00
$
______
$
60.00
$
______
25.00
$
60.00
$
______
25.00
$
60.00
$
______
0.00
$
25.00
$
______
195.00
$
______
35.00
15.00
$
______
30.00
20.00
$
______
35.00
20.00
$
______
$
$
Annual
Dues
50.00
$
$
$
o ADD REINSTATEMENT FEE (only if applicable)
10.00
CHAPTER MEMBERSHIP: Chapter membership is encouraged, but not
mandatory. To be a chapter member, you must also be a State Association
member. Find you chapter dues below by selecting the amount shown to the
right of your Membership Grade in the State Association.
o LAHONTAN CHAPTER: Northwestern Nevada (Reno/Carson) (no charge for Student Members)
o GREAT BASIN CHAPTER: Northeastern Nevada (Elko) (no charge for Student Members)
o SOUTHERN NEVADA CHAPTER:
(no charge for Student Members)
PAYMENT
INFORMATION
Regular Members
Associate and L.S.I Members
$
Regular Members
$
Regular Members
$
$
$
$
TOTAL AMOUNT TO BE REMITTED:
Please Note: A 3 transaction fee will be applied for all credit card transactions
$
o CHECK ENCLOSED
o CREDIT CARD - To renew by credit card, please visit our website at www.nv-landsurveyors.org (renewal via paypal)
*Associate and Student Member Applicants must be sponsored by a Regular Member of the Association.
Name of Sponsoring Member:________________________________________________________________
Applicant’s
Signature:
Date:
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Advertiser
Page No.
Aerotech Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Rear Cover
Berntsen International, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
California Surveying & Drafting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Outside Back Cover
Cartwright Aerial Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
H&S Positioning Nevada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Monsen Engineering Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Front Cover & 20
North American Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Surv-Kap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Trimble Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
ADVERTISER HOT LINKS
To receive FREE information about products and services from advertisers featured in this issue of The Nevada Traverse, you may log onto the NALS Web Page
at www.nv-landsurveyors.org, click on Nevada Traverse, and you will find a hot
link to the web sites of all advertisers in this issue. Using these links, you can go
directly to the advertiser(s) of your choice for inquiries, to request catalogs, training schedules and information, or placing orders.
The Nevada Traverse
The Nevada Association of Land Surveyors
Editor: Terry W. McHenry, P.L.S.
NALS Central Office
P.O. Box 20522
Reno, NV 89515
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the nevada traverse - The Nevada Association of Land Surveyors

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