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IN THIS ISSUE...
- A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
- CLSA LOSES FRIEND GORDON D. EDWARDS PLS 6678
- WHERE IN CA IS THIS?
- BPELSG OFFICIAL NOTICE & AGENDA -- APRIL 2023
- CLSA MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL
- 2023 WOMEN SURVEYORS SUMMIT
- PHYSICS SCIENCE & MATH DAYS
- Qfactor's New Feature, Tasklist, Modernizes Operations for Land Surveyors
- Call for Volunteers! Leadership Academy Committee
- Help Shape the Future of Land Surveying by Educating Our Future Surveyors
- IN THE NEWS
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Dear CLSA Members,
I am thrilled to share with you some highlights of my recent experiences as a land surveyor. Last month was particularly memorable, and I feel privileged to have been a part of two significant events that I'd like to share with you.
First, I had the honor of witnessing a proclamation on the Senate Floor in recognition of National Surveyors Week. Senator Wilk presented the reading, and we were joined by several esteemed colleagues, including Jon Scarpa, the Sacramento County Surveyor, Dallas Sweeny, Staff Registrar, BPELSG, Mike Hartley, Land Survey Member of BPELSG, and President of Bedrock Engineering, and Kim Oreno, Executive Director of CLSA. Walking through the halls of our State Capitol was an experience I will never forget.
Second, I attended the NALS/CLSA Conference in Reno from March 25-28. The highlight of the event for me was the guest speaker, Tim Burch, Executive Director of NSPS, who outlined the goals and challenges facing the Surveying Profession. He also shared some of the successes they are having on the national front. I found the round table discussions on topics of workforce development and professional practices particularly engaging. There was also discussion on the Nevada Licensing Board’s BPELS proposal to eliminate the State Specific Exam for Licensees looking to practice in Nevada.
Finally, I want to take this opportunity to remind our Board Members and Committee Chairs to submit their reports and attend the virtual Board Meeting on Saturday, April 29th. As a volunteer organization, our strength lies in our members' participation and attendance.
Overall, March was an incredible month for our profession, filled with opportunities to network and learn from industry leaders. Let's keep the momentum going and continue to advance the Surveying Profession together.
Kevin Hills, PLS
President, CLSA
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The 2023 SMA, PLS Act and Roster Books are now shipping!
CLICK HERE
| ARTICLE & PHOTO SUBMISSIONS FOR CALIFORNIA SURVEYOR MAGAZINE | Do you have a photo from your field work that would make a great magazine cover? Do you have an idea for an article or have you written an article that you'd like us to consider including in the next issue? Please send your submissions and ideas to CLSA Headquarters, clsa@californiasurveyors.org. |
NSPS - STOLEN EQUIPMENT REGISTRY
Reminder - NSPS provides a registry of stolen equipment.
| Offers a $.07 per page discount and will automatically donate $.10 per page to CLSA when members download courthouse documents through this website. These instruments include Deeds, Easements, Rights-of-Way, Releases, Liens, etc. | |
Help CLSA Education Foundation Fund Future Scholarship Awards!
The CLSA Education Foundation is holding a Saturday game night at the CLSA-NALS Conference this year at the TopGolf Swing Suite facility within the Silver Legacy complex. If you don’t golf, other activities are available including Zombie Dodgeball, Hockey Shots and Quarterback Challenge. This CLSA Education Foundation fundraiser will help fund future scholarships.
REGISTER HERE
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CLSA MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL
If you have not already renewed your CLSA membership, please do so now. And be sure to invite others to join our great organization. Your membership supports CLSA’s efforts to protect, enhance and grow the land surveying profession. Members receive free monthly webinars, discounts to the annual conference and from our affinity partner organizations, as well as membership in the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS) for representation and advocacy at the national level.
RENEW HERE
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Help Shape the Future of Land Surveying by Educating Our Future Surveyors
California State University Fresno is seeking a full-time lecturer in the Geomatics Engineering program for the 2023 fall semester starting in August, 2023.
READ MORE
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Qfactor's New Feature, Tasklist, Modernizes Operations for Land Surveyors
READ MORE
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PHYSICS SCIENCE & MATH DAYS April 28; May 5, 12, & 19, 2023
The Santa Clara/San Mateo Chapter of CLSA has organized interactive surveying presentations at Physics, Science, and Math Days at California’s
Great America in Santa Clara since at least 2014. We welcome all land surveyors, land survey technicians, and land surveying students to join us in our presentations.
CLICK HERE for details
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CLSA LOSES FRIEND GORDON D. EDWARDS PLS 6678 | |
March 10, 1952 - February 26, 2023 Gordon Dennis Edwards, a lifelong Riverside, CA resident, passed away peacefully in his sleep at home on February 26, 2023, after a 4-year struggle with cancer. He was born at Riverside Community Hospital, on March 10, 1952, to Art and Loye Edwards, joining his older brother Alan and sister Donice. He had fond memories of working in the orange groves that his father managed. He attended Emerson Elementary, University Heights Jr High, and North High School, graduating in 1970. In addition, he attended Riverside City College, UC Riverside, and Cal State San Bernardino. Gordon spent 40 years as a land surveyor in Southern California.
READ MORE
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The March “Where in CA is This?” had several winners, some of whom wish to remain anonymous. In addition to the masked mappers, Dallas Sweeney, PLS of BPELSG recognized it from personal knowledge. Josiah Tiner LSiT, from MBS Land Surveys in San Luis Obispo figured it out using Google Earth again. Marco Castenada, PLS, recognized it and confirmed with Google Earth. Bill Tuck, PLS recognized it as an earthen dam and figured out which one using Google Earth.
Photo credit for last month goes to Patrick Tami, PLS of DWR. The photo was indeed the Oroville Dam as seen from a dam monitoring control point. If you have a distinctive photo of California you would like to share, please send it to Rob with details of the location.
| Try to identify the location of this month’s photo. Please tell me how you identified the location. Submit answers to: Rob McMillan. | |
BPELSG OFFICIAL NOTICE & AGENDA -- APRIL 2023
The Official Notice and Agenda for the meeting of the Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists is now available on the Board's website.
CLICK HERE
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BPELSG MEETING MATERIALS -- APRIL 2023
The materials for the April 13-14, 2023 meeting of the Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists are now available on the Board's website. Please CLICK HERE for further information.
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CALL FOR 2023 NCEES SURVEYING EDUCATION AWARD ENTRIES
The NCEES Surveying Education Award recognizes surveying/geomatics programs that have a broad and robust curriculum and best reflect NCEES’ mission to advance licensure for surveyors in order to safeguard the health, safety, and welfare of the public. The award is intended to encourage programs to engage their students with other professionals, introduce them to both historical and new technology, and promote licensure.
At the discretion of the award jury, up to seven cash awards are presented each year. Use of the funds awarded is encouraged to be incorporated into the surveying/geomatics programs.
Grand prize: $25,000
Up to three prizes: $15,000
Up to three prizes: $10,000
Competition schedule
Applications due May 1, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. (EDT)
CLICK HERE for details
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Future Surveyors Foundation
2023 WOMEN SURVEYORS SUMMIT
Oct 19-22, 2023
Stillwater, MN
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4th Women Land Surveyors Summit. The Women Surveyors Summit, hosted by Future Surveyors
Foundation is held to support and promote diversity in the land surveying profession. There are 8-10 PDH’s available.
For sponsorship opportunities, please contact info@futuresurveyors.org.
LEARN MORE
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Call for Volunteers! Leadership Academy Committee
Dear Members and colleagues, I am Connie Barrett, I am a Project Manager at the Michael Baker International and also a long time member of our organization. Kevin Hills, our new state president has appointed me to chair the Leadership Academy Ad-Hoc Committee.
What is the Leadership Academy?
This is where we can learn tackle topics and learn about many additional skills which a surveyor needs to succeed in career development and in business in General. We want to create educational materials and possibly workshops which cover leadership topics such as:
Communication skills, Emotional Intelligence, Ethics, Logic, Decision Making, Mentoring, Conflict Resolution, Diversity and inclusion, Vision and Strategy Development, Change Management, Coaching and mentoring, Time Management and similar.
This is a sizeable task, and we need a number of people to help.
We need people with a vision, ideas, and we need people who have talents in accomplishing specific tasks – like writing a few paragraphs on a topic (you can even use chat GPT), take photos, maybe draw a picture, maybe edit a video, or just be a sounding board on how to improve things.
If you are interested in contributing, please drop me an email at connie.barrett@mbakerintl.com. Feel free to write a few lines about your interests. You don’t need to be a licensee to contribute. We will be collaborating via Trello online space.
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CONGRATULATIONS Christopher Martin, PLS (CA) Adds Oregon PLS!
Chris, a Senior Project Manager at BKF, shared on linkedIn he has acquired his new license as a Professional Land Surveyor in Oregon. Congratulations!
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CONGRATULATIONS Steve Slocum, PLS (CA) promoted to Director of Survey - California
Steve Slocum has been promoted to Director of Survey – California for Michael Baker International. Steve has worked his way up through the Michael Baker corporate structure beginning as a Survey Apprentice in February 2002. His roles progressed from there through Survey Party Chief, Survey Field Supervisor, Senior Project Manager, to Department Manager of Surveying and Mapping, prior to this latest promotion.
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First Day on the Hill, in the books for Adrian Aguirre!
Adrian posted the following in his LinkedIn profile: “Thank you to Guida Surveying, Inc. For their continued support by sending me to meet with legislators. Thank you to the legislators and their staff for meeting with me.
✔️Rep. Jim Costa (pictured) (D-CA21) staff Alexa Fox,
✔️Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) staff Claire Williams,
✔️House Natural Resources Committee with Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI7), staff Jason Bauknecht talking about Wildfire Mapping & Survey Mark Preservation, along with Wisconsin, Pennsylvania delegation and Paul E. Goebel
✔️ Rep. John Duarte (R-CA13), staff Josh Jamison, with Paul E. Goebel
✔️ Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), staff Will Klink LC, Sean Mullin LA
✔️ Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA5)
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Another 4th generation surveyor?
Dirk Nasland reports that his oldest son Dylan “has been wanting to come survey with me for a day and we finally had a good opportunity come up. He had a fun time and seemed to enjoy it. I was happy to have someone there to help out and chat with while we worked. He got to come out for a pretty basic site and see a typical day of surveying without any whiz-bang flashy stuff going on. Just a simple boundary, some aerial control and topo-check shots to confirm the aerial survey. I did, however, reward him with a Robux card on the way home, but only because he hadn’t asked for it. The boss hooked him up with a new hat and a shirt as well. Win-win. I’m not pushing him towards the profession, but he’s starting to show some interest and I’ll be more than pleased if he goes this route to be another 4th generation surveyor in the family.”
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JR Gregory selected to 2023-2024 class of the SAME Leader Development Program (LDP)
Towill and the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) are pleased to announce that JR Gregory has been selected to participate in the 2023-2024 class of the SAME Leader Development Program (LDP). A total of 20 individuals from across SAME were chosen for this prestigious professional development program.
Developed with support from the SAME Foundation, LDP identifies and cultivates talent from within SAME’s membership to address the nation’s grand challenges. The program supports the development of the next generation of world-class military, government, and industry leaders for the Society and our nation through a curriculum of hands-on training, study, and active engagement in new opportunities. Participants will explore individual strengths, team dynamics, and discover their potential personally and professionally. LDP is a yearlong commitment beginning at the Joint Engineer Training Conference (JETC) 2023 to be held in San Antonio, Texas, May 2-4
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Thank You CLSA Sustaining Members | | | | |
