The Push for a National Surveyors Week Proclamation

Hopefully if you're reading this blog, you're aware of the importance of professional surveyors to the United States. Unfortunately, many people in the general public are not. So what can we do to get recognized?

We've sent a request to the President of the United States to have March 17-23 of this year recognized as National Surveyors Week. We are hoping that this will help bring surveyors the recognition they deserve and spread the word about what an important profession we are all a part of.

Please do what you can to spread the word by tweeting this post or linking to it from your site! Thank you!

Read Curt's letter to the President here.

Leave your thoughts in the comment box below!

One Voice

One voice. The creation of a unified, strong, national voice for the surveying profession is our goal. This will require that we all learn to use the new tools that are available today -- you know what tools we're talking about. Not your GPS receivers, not your total stations, but the communications tools our teenagers use almost every hour of their waking lives.

Most surveyors know they're part of a long-standing proud profession at the core of most of what America has been built on. But boasting about our good deeds has seemingly never been a part of our moral fiber.

When you walk past the massive billboard fronting a construction site, you can almost always learn who the architect, interior designer, landscape architect, or engineer on the project is. But who laid the ground work? Who did the surveying? Good luck trying to find out.

We hear you. We intend to upgrade how we communicate with each other and the nation at large. We've gone about conducting the business of our professional society, but to a great extent have forgotten the we need to broadcast the essence of our vital efforts to multiple audiences: the news media, the public, Capitol Hill and other professions. 

All that changes beginning now. This change in direction will not occur overnight and will require that we (and possibly you) learn new techniques to communicate (but hey, we are surveyors, and incorporating new technologies has always been our strong suit, right?).

In order to achieve these goals, we need to embrace the 21^st century. We need to be able to communicate our thoughts at the speed of light, or more accurately, the speed of social media. 

How we will do this? Modern communications. Blogs. Tweets. All aspects of the Internet and yes, even the established yet proven print media. The goal is really quite simple: to get a precise (yet constantly evolving) understanding of the key issues that impact the way you do your job as surveyors, to identify what needs to be accomplished, and to communicate these concerns to the appropriate decision makers.

This is just a start, but an important one in which we will work collaboratively with you to develop the national voice we so strongly need and deserve.