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

            http://www.vsls.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Cornerpost_Fall2015.pdf

David A. Mann LS, Editor 

Vermont Society of Land Surveyors

Best Newsletter

            Pennsylvania Surveyor (paper and online), Summer 2015

            http://www.psls.org/Resources/Documents/newsletters/PA_Surveyor_Summer.pdf

            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

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.

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

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

The Commerce Committee of the U.S. Senate today unanimously approved S. 2325

The Commerce Committee of the U.S. Senate today unanimously approved S. 2325, the NSPS-supported Digital Coast Act.  

http://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=6C33E263-FD25-4A1E-A612-444AE4501594

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.