From where will they come…

As the owner of an Engineering and Land Surveying professional service corporation, I recognize that college educated and licensed professionals are at the core of the intellectual services we offer our valued clients.

I also recognize that there are many tasks and job definitions that are invaluable and essential to the operation of our firm that do not require a college degree or state licensure.

More and more, I find that identifying and recruiting degreed college graduates and licensed professionals is easier than finding qualified and/or trained field surveyors and CAD operators.

Where are these essential components of a functioning Engineering and Land Surveying company to be found?

Training and education for these positions are thin at best and mostly non-existent. Virtually all of the field surveyors I have met in my 34 years in the industry were trained on-the-job. Field surveying can be varied and regional in its subtleties. Boundary, Topography, construction staking and laser scanning are a short list of skills that our surveyors must be well versed in, but nowhere are the techniques used daily by surveyors all over the State of California taught in an organized or sanctioned way.

Most of the CAD jockeys I know had an introductory education to Computer Assisted Drafting, but little or no specific training in the nuance and particulars of the myriad of specialized civil and land division plans that are overseen by professionals yet generated by technicians.

Add to these deficiencies the emerging 3D scanning field (I hesitate to call it a profession, as there is currently no licensure or certification for operators or modelers) in which scanning equipment and modeling software is being promoted and advertised by manufacturers and developers throughout the year…yet…there is no education or training available for either.

Will the burden of training and educating these invaluable technicians ALWAYS fall on to the professional service firms that need them? Is there value to the public in general to provide training and education, vocationally at the Junior College level, to bright young high school graduates that are not college bound? What about all of our military veterans, looking for jobs after their return from war in the Middle East? I think they would make great candidates for these essential positions.

As is always the case, solutions start with pain. Not until the void in identifying and employing these technicians becomes a burden to land development on a statewide level…and I believe it will…will there be a response educationally to the gap.

As the owner of an Engineering and Land Surveying professional service corporation, I recognize that college educated and licensed professionals are at the core of the intellectual services we offer our valued clients.

I also recognize that there are many tasks and job definitions that are invaluable and essential to the operation of our firm that do not require a college degree or state licensure.

As the owner of an Engineering and Land Surveying professional service corporation, I recognize that college educated and licensed professionals are at the core of the intellectual services we offer our valued clients.

I also recognize that there are many tasks and job definitions that are invaluable and essential to the operation of our firm that do not require a college degree or state licensure.