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President s Message
Message from the President: Why we do it
I’ve tried many times over the years to explain to people why I’m so passionate about the profession of Land Surveying. I’m sure the answer is a bit different for all of us. I’ve had a very diverse surveying career and have met so many surveyors over the years. But if I had to pick just one aspect of surveying that I love the most, I’d have to say it’s the history of the land itself.
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I was hired to survey and subdivide 78 acres in a rural county surrounded mostly by state game lands. But one of the lands adjoining was my mother’s old family homestead. The property had been out of her family for decades. As I was pulling deeds in the chain of title I got back to the old handwritten deeds and started recognizing names. My grandfather, great grandfather and great uncles.
The house in which my mother and two of her siblings were born stood through the trees. It was built in the late 1800’s. A family is living in it and its been well maintained over the years. As I tapped a survey cap with my name and license number on top of the 5/8” rebar I’d just set, I realized that years from now, another surveyor is going to find the monument I just set. They’ll pull the recorded plan from the courthouse that I sealed. They’ll research the same deeds, though the names won’t mean anything to them.
As Surveyors, we not only research the history of the land, but we’ll forever be a part of it. Whether you’re a rural boundary surveyor, construction, highway, pipeline, mining, urban, city, geodetic, hydrographic, field, office and drafters, we’re all leaving our mark on history. It takes all of us sharing our expertise, experience, and love of surveying to keep Land Surveying the honorable and respected profession it has always been. I’d love to hear about your defining moment, that moment when you realized “this is why I love surveying”. If you’d like to share, please send your short story to us at psls@psls.org or me, personally, at PSLSpres@psls.org, with the subject line “Why I do it”.
