Wednesday, October 19, 2016

NSPS, MAPPS Announce 2017 National Surveying, Mapping & Geospatial Conference


Frederick, MD – The National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS) and MAPPS today announced they will jointly host the third annual national surveying, mapping, and geospatial conference, March 13-17, 2017 at the Sheraton Hotel in Silver Spring, Maryland. The conference will bring together associations, professional societies, individuals, companies, and government agencies in the surveying, mapping and geospatial fields. It will focus on the profession in private practice, technological innovations and collaboration, and public policy.

Providing a forum for discussions on best practices, technology, issues and policies, the conference gives participants an opportunity to share information, knowledge and tools, as well as opens doors to new markets and facilitates collaboration on data acquisition, processing, applications and the use of new and emerging technology.  The program will also feature discussions of business practices and policy issues that directly impact companies in the private sector.

The overall conference will serve as an umbrella to include plenary sessions, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and social/networking activities designed to create synergy among the many vertical segments (technical disciplines, applications, and sectors) of the surveying, mapping and geospatial community.

NSPS will host the team presentations for its annual Student Competition on Monday, March 13. The NSPS annual General Membership meeting, and other business, committee and board meetings, will be scheduled throughout the week in order to allow NSPS leadership to more fully participate in conference activities. 

The conference will also include the MAPPS annual Federal Programs Conference March 14-15. Tuesday, March 14 will feature presentations by Federal agencies, the newly elected Administration, and members of Congress including briefings on programs, budgets, and requirements for the acquisition of geospatial services, data and products by contract from the private sector.

On Wednesday, March 15, MAPPS and NSPS members will visit some 200 Congressmen and Senators at the U.S. Capitol, advancing a common agenda of legislative issues that serve the public and engage the surveying and mapping community. Information on how to participate will be available soon. 

The Sheraton Silver Spring was selected as the site of the conference for its meeting facilities and proximity to the Washington Metro subway system to particularly provide to attendees easy access and transportation to Capitol Hill in Washington, DC for visits with Congress.

“This conference builds on the partnership formed in 2014 by focusing on business practices, technology, and government programs and policy issues that affect the membership of both associations.  We are pleased to continue developing a national surveying and mapping conference intended to compliments, not compete with or duplicate, the continuing education opportunities provided by state surveying societies by focusing on business, technology, and policy issues, and providing an opportunity for engagement between practitioners and technology providers in a “vendor-neutral” setting,” said NSPS Executive Director Curtis W. Sumner, LS, and MAPPS Executive Director John M. Palatiello.

The website, www.surveyingandmapping.net, will include updates on program details and links to on-line registration. 
  
About NSPS
Having incorporated ACSM within NSPS in 2012, the organization is the preeminent national professional society working in affiliation with the respective state societies of professional surveyors and along with persons trained, registered, or interested in the profession of surveying and mapping. NSPS advances the sciences and disciplines within the profession and strives to establish and further common interests, objectives, and political efforts to help bind the surveying profession into a unified body in the United States. NSPS is the interface for the surveying profession with a multitude of national organizations in related fields, and with federal government entities.

About MAPPS

Formed in 1982, MAPPS is the only national association exclusively comprised of private firms in the remote sensing, spatial data and geographic information systems field in the United States. The MAPPS membership spans the entire spectrum of the geospatial community, including Member Firms engaged in satellite and airborne remote sensing, surveying, photogrammetry, aerial photography, LIDAR, hydrography, bathymetry, charting, aerial and satellite image processing, GPS, and GIS data collection and conversion services. MAPPS also includes Associate Member Firms, which are companies that provide hardware, software, products and services to the geospatial profession in the United States and other firms from around the world. Independent Consultant Members are sole proprietors engaged in consulting in or to the geospatial profession, or provides a consulting service of interest to the geospatial profession.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Help your NSPS Foundation Continue to respond to requests for Disaster Relief!

We recently placed and article in News & Views about disaster relief response to victims of flooding in Louisiana. With the recent storm Matthew pummeling the East Coast from Florida to Virginia there will undoubtedly be more need for disaster relief. You Can Help!!!
Small donations from a multitude of our fellow surveyors can insure that the Fund will be sufficiently supported to allow the Foundation to respond to pleas for assistance. Who knows, where, when a disaster will occur, or who will be affected by coming floods, storms, tornados, fires, or any other natural or man made disaster.
Certainly, times are still difficult for many of us, but a collection of small donations can be as effective as a few large ones. Send whatever you can afford. We will gratefully accept any donation you can make! Please mark Disaster Relief on your checks or make a donation online (Make a donation today!
https://nsps.site-ym.com/donations/donate.asp?id=13326.

Remember we are a tax deductible 501(C) 3 organization. Contact the NSPS office (trisha.milburn@nsps.us.com; 240-439-4615, ext. 105) for more information on how to contribute.

Help your NSPS Foundation Continue to respond to requests for Disaster Relief!

We recently placed and article in News & Views about disaster relief response to victims of flooding in Louisiana. With the recent storm Matthew pummeling the East Coast from Florida to Virginia there will undoubtedly be more need for disaster relief. You Can Help!!!

Small donations from a multitude of our fellow surveyors can insure that the Fund will be sufficiently supported to allow the Foundation to respond to pleas for assistance. Who knows, where, when a disaster will occur, or who will be affected by coming floods, storms, tornados, fires, or any other natural or man made disaster.

Certainly, times are still difficult for many of us, but a collection of small donations can be as effective as a few large ones. Send whatever you can afford. We will gratefully accept any donation you can make! Please mark Disaster Relief on your checks or make a donation online. Make a donation today! https://nsps.site-ym.com/donations/donate.asp?id=13326.

Remember we are a tax deductible 501(C) 3 organization. Contact the NSPS office (trisha.milburn@nsps.us.com; 240-439-4615, ext. 105) for more information on how to contribute.

Help your NSPS Foundation Continue to respond to requests for Disaster Relief!

We recently placed and article in News & Views about disaster relief response to victims of flooding in Louisiana. With the recent storm Matthew pummeling the East Coast from Florida to Virginia there will undoubtedly be more need for disaster relief. You Can Help!!!

Small donations from a multitude of our fellow surveyors can insure that the Fund will be sufficiently supported to allow the Foundation to respond to pleas for assistance. Who knows, where, when a disaster will occur, or who will be affected by coming floods, storms, tornados, fires, or any other natural or man made disaster.

Certainly, times are still difficult for many of us, but a collection of small donations can be as effective as a few large ones. Send whatever you can afford. We will gratefully accept any donation you can make! Please mark Disaster Relief on your checks or make a donation online. Make a donation today! https://nsps.site-ym.com/donations/donate.asp?id=13326.

Remember we are a tax deductible 501(C) 3 organization. Contact the NSPS office (trisha.milburn@nsps.us.com; 240-439-4615, ext. 105) for more information on how to contribute.

Friday, July 22, 2016

Become a Certified Survey Technician (CST)

No matter what the future holds, prepare to meet challenges head on. Future-proof your resume by becoming a Certified Survey Technician (CST). This unique four-level certification program indicates official recognition by NSPS that a person can perform surveying tasks at a specific technical level.
Show what you can do! Decide between the field or office track.  Visit www.nsps.us.com for more details.

ALTA/NSPS question

I have been asked by a client to show the outline of a "proposed" parcel that may be cut out of the parcel which is the subject of a ALTA/NSPS survey. Of course, the "proposed" parcel is not yet of record, nor has there been any access way designated for it should it be created. Can I do that and still be in compliance with the 2016 ALTA/NSPS standards?

Answer:
I see no problem with showing proposed parcels, easements, etc. as long as it is clear on the face of the survey that it is not an existing parcel, easement, etc. Oftentimes, this sort of thing is going to happen at closing, so the parcel/easement does not exist yet, but it may as part of the transaction, so they need to see it. 

Thursday, July 21, 2016

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2016 NATIONAL TRIG-STAR WINNERS


The Richard E. Lomax National Trig-Star Awards are as follows:

1st Place:  Collin Free, Syracuse High School, Syracuse, UT
2nd Place: Avi Swartz, Cherry Creek High School, Greenwood Village, CO
3rd Place:  Aaron Sun, Ed W. Clark High School, Las Vegas, NV

Collin Free

Avi Swartz

Aaron Sun

 The Richard E. Lomax National Teaching Excellence Awards are as follows:

1st Place:   Ashley Martin, Syracuse High School, Syracuse, UT
2nd Place:  Dotty Dady, Cherry Creek High School, Greenwood Village, CO
3rd Place:   Saundra D. Jordan, Ed W. Clark High School, Las Vegas, NV

The first place student receives $2,000, second place student receives $1,000, and third place student receives $500.  The first place teacher receives $1,000, second place teacher receives $500, and third place teacher receives $250.  The Trig-Star Policy states that “the National Student and Teacher Awards be given to the winning students at or before the next state professional land surveying organization conference of the student’s home state.”

The following is a list of the remaining State Winners in the order of finish:
Junhee Lee, Iowa; Veronica Xinyu Gu, Minnesota; Thomas Szczesniak, Michigan; Dagin Lin, Connecticut; John Mastroberti, South Carolina; Yiwei Lyu, Pennsylvania; Tao Lu, Texas; Antonio Faraci, New York; Qingfeng Li, Wyoming; Giovanni Budi, North Carolina; Stephan Terry, Delaware; Alan Zho, South Dakota; Veronica Lahony Suarez Torres, Puerto Rico; Noah Paladino, New Jersey; Elizabeth Asp, North Dakota; William Quinn Marsh, California; Andrew Reimer-Berg, Oregon; Zander Rossman, Wisconsin; Travis Casey, Kansas; William Zhang, Alabama; Jelisa Holmquist, Montana; William Luqiu, Virginia; Nicholas Lillis, Maine; Walter Johnson, Kentucky; Madison Gaines, Maryland; Thomas Pointer, Missouri; Jeffery Mayolo, Washington; Timothy Kammerer, New Hampshire; Christian Lynch, Massachusetts; Wyatt Evan Turner, Georgia; Joel Niemi, Ohio; Haoxiang Li, Illinois; Tingyi Lu, Indiana; Drake Thomas, Alaska; Kael Stelek, Idaho.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

ALTA/NSPS Question

Regarding Table A, Item 6, in the cases where we don’t get zoning reports from our clients, we still state the zoning classification and the bulk requirements for height and setback only (not coverage or parking).  We qualify these notes stating that the information is per jurisdictional public information. 

In your opinion, based on your reading of the requirements, if I don’t receive a zoning report, should I be excluding citing 6a and 6b in my certificate even though I have qualified where the information comes from?

Response:

In my opinion, that would be entirely up to you. I see nothing whatsoever wrong with either approach. 

Requiring that the report be provided to the surveyor was a purposeful attempt by both ALTA and NSPS to move liability for zoning matters off of the surveyor and on to people/companies who specialize in such work. 


If you are willing to take some of that liability back, I see no reason that you cannot do that (with an appropriate 'disclaimer' as to where the information came from), although pursuant to the standards, you do not have to. 

Monday, July 11, 2016

NSPS exhibits at the American School Counselor Association

NSPS exhibits at the American School Counselor Association Annual Conference in New Orleans, LA - July 8-1.


NSPS President Tony Cavell and Robert Mora II (LA) speaking about surveying careers with some of the conference's 3000 attendees.

Friday, July 8, 2016

2016 Map/Plat Design Competition

NSPS is pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 Map/Plat Design Competition, and expresses its appreciation for all who participated.  NSPS also wishes to thank the judges for their dedicated efforts. Visit http://www.nsps.us.com/?page=MapPlat for press release.

Subdivision Plats

            First Place                   Harry Smith – Northeast Surveying, Inc. - Wisconsin
            Second Place              Kyle Mott – BME Associates – New York
            Third Place                 Jeff Vierrether – MSA, PC - Virginia

Boundary/Cadastral Maps

            First Place                   Jason Woods – Planners & Engineers Collaboration - Georgia
            Second Place              Steven Bieda – Mau & Associates - Wisconsin
            Third Place                 John B. Guyton – Flatirons, Inc. Surveying & Engineers - Colorado

Topographic Maps

            First Place                   Brent Evans – Christopher Consultants - Virginia
            Second Place              Rodney Kiser – High Country Engineering, Inc. - Colorado
Third Place                 Tammy Privett – CEI Engineering Associates, Inc. - Arkansas

ALTA/ACSM Survey Maps

            First Place                   William E. Grueninger III – Gutschick, Little & Weber, PA - Maryland
            Second Place              Lewis R. Shelton – LRS Surveying - Georgia
            Third Place                 Tammy Privett – CEI Engineering Associates, Inc. - Arkansas

Miscellaneous Maps

            First Place (tie)            Jeffery Nading – Colorado Department of Transportation - Colorado
            First Place (tie)            Ryan Duckart – Brown County - Wisconsin
            Second Place              Rodney Kiser – High Country Engineering, Inc. - Colorado

            Third Place                 Kolby F. Shertz – Quest Civil Engineering, LLC - Wisconsin

2016 Excellence in Journalism Competition

NSPS is pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 Excellence in Journalism Competition, and expresses its appreciation for all who participated.  NSPS also wishes to thank the judges for their dedicated efforts.

Best State Society Magazine

            The Cornerpost Volume 46, No. 3, Fall 2015
David A. Mann LS, Editor 
Vermont Society of Land Surveyors

Best Newsletter

            Pennsylvania Surveyor (paper and online), Summer 2015
            Donald E. Rife PLS, Editor 
            Pennsylvania Society of Land Surveyors
           
Best Editorial

            A Good Pair of Boots by Bob Plubs (aka Plumb Bob)
            The TBM, July 2015 Volume 17, No. 7, Page 3 
            New Hampshire Land Surveyors Association

Best Original Feature Article

            Honoring the Survey of the Michigan Meridian by Joseph Fenicle
            Michigan Surveyor, Spring/Summer 2015           
            Michigan Society of Professional Surveyors


Thursday, May 26, 2016

ALTA/NSPS Question


Question:
It seems that I'm at odds with some on whether in performing either a boundary survey or an ALTA/NSPS survey one should find as many property corners or monuments as possible on the block in which the parcel is situated. Some say just locate the property corners of the site for an ALTA/NSPS survey, while if you are doing a boundary then you go outside your site. I believe you should do this for both in order to prove that the parcel is where it is supposed to be. Am I wrong in thinking this way? Is an ALTA/NSPS survey more like a supersized mortgage survey where you just find the property corners of that parcel or site, and then any additional items on Schedule A? I'm curious now.

Response:
Those who say that an ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey is something less than a boundary survey are woefully misinformed and have apparently not read the Standards. A Land Title Survey is not just a supersized mortgage survey. Here is what Section 3.D. of the 2016 (and 2011) Standards say about this issue. "The boundary lines and corners of any property being surveyed as part of an ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey shall be established and/or retraced in accordance with appropriate boundary law principles governed by the set of facts and evidence found in the course of performing the research and fieldwork." Clearly an ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey is a boundary survey. It's a boundary survey to a higher set of standards than a "generic" boundary survey. Someone approaching a Land Title Survey as something less than a boundary survey would likely suffer a claim of malpractice or negligence if something goes wrong.

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Why no "leaning towers"? Thank a surveyor!

http://www.ladowntownnews.com/news/why-we-don-t-have-a-leaning-tower-of-downtown/article_6c38e696-1081-11e6-9b9e-f7c6a4b1e8a2.html



Surveyors from the Downtown office of the engineering and consulting firm Psomas inspect the Wilshire Grand tower almost every day to make sure that the 73-story building is standing straight. Misplaced joints or angles that are off by a fraction of a degree can pose big problems as skyscrapers rise.
photo by Gary Leonard


Friday, April 29, 2016

Pipeline Safety Bill

The Energy and Commerce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives has approved a pipeline safety bill with a provision on enhanced mapping and location data.

http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/106213-pipeline-safety-bill-unanimously-approved-by-house-energy-committee

Friday, January 8, 2016

BEYOND MEASUREMENT: THE KEY TO SURVIVAL

By John Stock, NSPS President No. 6 (1986)
Back in the day: Okay don’t groan. This is not another dinosaur Stock’s tale of physical adventure. I have been looking for an explanation of why surveyors have done a great job of ignoring their duty as land boundary experts and allowing kindred members of the geospatial industry to rob them of their rightful place. My own career starting in 1966 is a prime example. The tools of the trade were a transit, steel tape, and dumpy level and “Philadelphia” level rod. The crew was at least three and sometimes four members. Everyone had a specific duty and all had to perform correctly to achieve results. Consider a boundary traverse in the high country.
There was the party chief, the instrument man, and the brush cutter at a minimum. The instrument man (gunner) sometimes doubled as the tail chain, the party chief head chained and took the notes. He also assisted in clearing line. All the equipment was mechanical, without batteries, all data was hand written and information was yelled back and forth between crew members. You get the idea now how easily blunders could occur. Then came the office grind and a real grind it was. The task of looking up numbers in trig tables, more writing, calculating sometimes with a pencil and if lucky a primitive calculator like a Singer, Monroe or Friden the size of a TV set that would add, subtract, multiply and divide contributed to the tedious and mind numbing drill. Then came adjustments, Transit rule, compass rule, filling out a sheet and more computations by double meridian distance to get an area. This was hard, brain sucking work that had to be done perfectly. Chasing down a blundered calculation in this myriad of numbers was a true nightmare. With all this to perform it would seem very difficult if not incredibly budget blowing to do any real research. After all you would have to go down to the courthouse, ask questions of staff, dig through books, and make more notes, make copies and pay for them. Many didn’t bother to do this critical step. Oh, and don’t forget getting ahold of the appropriate GLO notes and plats. Expert MEASURING dominated the labor effort.
Not reading Clark, Skelton and especially Brown in those days was standard procedure. The surveyor might have owned the books but rarely cracked them (just like today huh?) And don’t forget the various BLM manuals of Instruction that our State Boards and Legislators saddled us with, requiring us (at least in our minds) to do it “their way”. Because we were so busy measuring we didn’t read. Had someone in the sixties started blowing the bugle we wouldn’t be in this situation today. The information was always there if a person were to read carefully and completely, not taking paragraphs out of context. One prime example is the doctrine of cardinal equivalents in a proportion solution in the various manuals. In my travels as a seminar presenter I would usually ask the crowd if they had ever heard the term. A few hands would go up. This is a room of over 150 people! The next question was “did you ever apply them”?” Most did not.
The expert measuring crutch has long ago been ripped from us by the very technology we pay for and worship. To maintain the PROFESSION of Land Surveying we have to reinvent ourselves into solving land boundary problems as far as the law will allow. Boundary is all we have left to be a unique group in the land identification industry. The process of examining, licensing and regulating surveyors must be protected at all costs. To be this new kind of surveyor, you have to READ, STUDY, Attend Classes whether in person or on line. This is the true labor of the 21st century surveyor. I for one don’t want the 21st century surveyor to be the last.