MSS is instituting a member spotlight feature wherein different members will
reveal a personal history in the surveying profession and offer insight on the past, present and future of surveying.
This month as the inaugural edition, The Maryland Surveyor spoke with Bob Banzhoff, Past President 2005-2006 and Surveyor of the Year 2009.
Maryland Surveyor (MS):
When did you start surveying?
Bob Banzhoff (BB):
Easy to remember - last week of October, first week of November, 1972.
MS:
Why did you get into surveying?
BB:
I was working in a bakery 60-65 hours a week with Tuesdays and Saturdays off. I had a young wife, a new baby (first child), owned a car and had a mortgage on a house. During the week of vacation I took for the birth of my son I found a new job. I had been a Boy Scout, I could read a compass and a map, and I loved the outdoors. I also had college level algebra and trigonometry, which helped.
MS:
Describe one of your best experiences while surveying?
BB:
I was leveling the instrument (a transit in those days) in a fence corner when I had the feeling something was looking at me. I was already standing still, adjusting the level bubble, so I turned only my eyes to see a red fox staring at me. He (or she) had come along the trail, started to cross under the wire fence, spotted the tripod legs, and stopped. We each regarded the other for a long few seconds, then the fox pulled back out under the fence and walked away. It was just one of those moments you sometimes but seldom see in nature.
MS:
Describe one of your worst experiences while surveying?
BB:
It was absolutely being stung multiple times from stepping in a nest of yellowjackets on a mountain outside Hancock and realizing that I was having a severe allergic reaction on the ride back to the office in Hagerstown.
MS:
When did you get licensed and do you have more than one license?
BB:
Dr. Maloy signed my license in January of 1988. There was a deadline to grandfather in before the Property Line License ceased to be issued in Maryland, and that is my one and only license.
MS:
What type of surveying makes up most of your work?
BB:
In my early years I did a spot of everything and anything that we could contract for compensation. I eventually settled into doing residential subdivision, until the bottom fell out as we all remember. Now we do construction, residential and commercial subdivision, and a good many ALTA/NSPS surveys. Keeps me hopping!!
MS:
Who are some of the surveyors that influenced your knowledge in the profession (in school or on the job)?
BB:
Like a great many others, I owe a debt I could have never repaid to Bill Fox. I must also mention William J. "Bucky" Teach. I would have never gotten my license if it were not for Brown, Wilson and Robillard. After licensure, I developed an admiration and respect for Jim Demma which only continues to grow and expand. Of course, you actually learn something from everyone, from some, how to, and from some (to a hopefully lesser degree) how not to.
MS:
What was special about what you learned from them?
BB:
From Bill Fox I learned the basics, and how to apply common sense to surveying principles. Bucky helped me learn to manage, that special art of "wrangling" surveyors - not unlike herding cats. Brown, Wilson and Robillard gave me the wider perspective that experience could not afford me but that I needed to have to do well on the examinations.
MS:
What advice would you give to new surveyors?
BB:
When I worked with Skip Kayser, he would say "Don't be skeered." Don't be afraid to take the responsibility, or the chance, take charge, you only live once - you might as well try to run things your way.
MS:
When you are not surveying, what do you like to do?
BB:
Time with the kids is good, time with the grandchildren even better. Otherwise, it's fishing - in fresh water, of course, and from the canoe if possible.
MS:
How has surveying changed since you started?
BB:
In the simplest of terms, transit and tape, dumpy levels, no calculators but instead a five (5) place book of trig tables and a pencil, field books, sketches, and most annoyingly, no radios! You could never be without a plumb bob on your person, nowadays some crews have never seen one! I don't think I need to go into any more detail, but one word might suffice - robots.
MS:
What question did you expect us to ask that we didn't ask? What is the answer?
BB:
The ultimate question is why? Why surveying?
The answer is that being a surveyor is like being a musician - it's more than a job, it's more than a career, because beyond the profession it is definitely a lifestyle choice, proof of which is the fact that you have pictures of brass disks you have known among your family photos. It's addicting, and you can't help it... at least I can't.
