We recently completed our Spring semester at George Mason University where I have been teaching for many years. On the last day of this class which provides instruction on engineering and surveying computations, one of the students asked if I thought Surveying was a good career to get in to. Let's say it was your son/daughter who asked you if you thought it would be a good carrer choice for them.

Consider that the realm of the surveyor is under constant attack, where others are now performing traditional surveying tasks. Consider that equipment advances have reduced the need for field surveyors. Consider that surveyors don't get paid a lot of money but are responsible for enormous liabilities associated with their work. Consider that surveying is a dangerous field that must contend with snakes, parasites and intermittent angry homeowners wielding firearms. Consider that the average age of surveyors according to the surveying societies, is around 58 years old.

My answer was that Surveying is a viable field to pursue as a career. However you may find that you won't be doing the surveying as we have traditionally. Rather, the new breed of surveyor may work for an engineering/surveying company however, significant work in surveying may be found in: construction firms where a license is desired but not required; in law enforcement work for accident re-enactment data collection and other forensic surveying tasks; for work on GIS systems or for preparing 3D models for data prep and "Digital Stakeout".

I believe the field of surveying is expanding but there no longer exists this environment of surveying be performed by licensed surveyors that work for surveying organizations. The LS is being used to set certain controls and absorb the liabilities thereof. Non-traditional surveyors then come off of these controls and produce all of the rest of the construction survey tasks on their own with advanced equipment. The LS then returns for as-builts. I don't know if this is good or bad, but it is happening more and more.

So what would you say, Would you recommend Surveying as a career for your son or daughter and why? 

For weeks now we are seeing the Mississippi flooded, dams being intentionally breached by the USACE and farms and towns completely flooded out. OK, so it rained, a lot. Do our news networks not understand that that it is our failed infrastructure that cannot convey and manage the cresting water levels? Why are our civil engineers and other industry colleagues not screaming about this at the top of their lungs? I don't get it. Yes I understand that the rain was an act of God, so they say, but that is why we have dikes, levees, dams, spillways and such all monitored by the USACE. Holland has kept the entire Atlantic Ocean at bay for hundreds of years and we can't manage a river.
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With the growth of automated machine guidance increasing at a strong pace related work occurs in surveying, stakeout and data prep. Machine control is useless without a good 3D model and we have talked about this in my writings for over ten years! I wonder if the field of support services for machine control hasn’t matured to extent where we need the law to catch up to it.
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It is a great time to be a Surveyor or Civil Engineer if you live in China!

- Land Development is dead in the U.S., it is flourishing in China due to increasingly wealthy population and a huge influx of ex-patriate workers.
- Government is the largest funding source of engineering projects, but U.S. government refuses to spend on Infrastructure (The Fall of Rome repeats itself)
- U.S. infrastructure is crumbling with no repair in sight. We now pay the victims of our catastrophic failures off and call it "the cost of doing business" and we fix the one failed structure. This is part of a risk analysis that shows it is cheaper to pay victims than to fix the underlying inafrastructure.
- U.S. government leaders are clueless; blinded by their own short term agendas to their constituents. They will bail out huge corrupt and inefficent companies but they won't invest in building America's infrastructure.
- This from Mitch McConnell (KY) as reported in USA Today 2/15/11! In response to Obama's proposed budget for 2012 on Monday, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said that "we don't have the money" to pay for "trains and windmills."
- Financing from banks to small business dried up years ago and there is no financing for any speculative projects.

On the other hand:
- China spends 12% of its GDP on infrastructure, US spends 2%.
- China is spending $600B on high speed rail over the next 3 years. They build 22KM of high speed rail/day.
- U.S. hopes to spend $53B over the next 6 years (if republicans let them). This is about 5% of what China is accomplishing now.
- China spends $60B/year on military, U.S. spends $600B/year. And few people doubt the military power of China.
- China is becoming the new #1 world power and their priority is to build their country. Our priority is military, period.
- There are more Honor Role students in China than we have total number of students in America!
- The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates it will cost more than $2 trillion to bring roads, bridges, and other infrastructure to a state of good repair. Clearly we have allowed our EXISTING infrastructure to decay to this level, where is the money to move us forward? How many more trillions are needed to move us to a world leading status? Will it get funded?
- It is a great time to be a Surveyor or Civil Engineer if you live in China, what a shame!

It was interesting to hear the President give the annual State of the Union address last week. As anticipated, he urged us to invest in three things: infrastructure, education and research. These concepts come on the heels of the rare visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao. During that visit, we learned that the Chinese military has advanced faster than we anticipated, that Chinese students score the highest grades in the world in every subject, that the Chinese spend 12% of their GDP on infrastructure every year, that they build 22 km of new high-speed rail every day, and that the Chinese economy grew by 12% last year. We also learned that the Chinese economy will be the world’s largest by 2035, 15 years ahead of when it was anticipated. There are more honor students in China than America has students in school.
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I had a rare opportunity to watch a bunch of TV this holiday, mostly documentaries, but they were varied in content. After watching several on history I began to realize how flimsy our construction is. The shows highlighted the work of the Romans, their great cities many of which still stand today; their public works facilities, their roads, bridges and coliseums, libraries and meeting places.

I watched as they documented ancient Mayan civilizations, the Great Wall of China, Anasazi Indian cities, the Cambodian temples of Angor Wat and structures in the Middle East dating before Christ. We are talking facilities, structures, infrastructures that while may not be in full service today; they are still standing and have varying degrees of structural integrity. Indeed they have lasted thousands of years.

We can give enormous credit to the architects, engineers and builders who constructed Westminster Abbey which dates to the 1200’s and is in full service to this day. However, these other civilizations go back thousands of years before even this!

I began thinking about our construction, of which I have been a small part for 30 years now in my career. I worked on the Twin Bridges over Cavalcade, the Hardy Toll Road, and the Bush airport all in Houston; I worked on international projects in Saudi Arabia, such as the building of the cities of Jubail and Abqaiq. Although at the time these were significant projects in my professional life, I began to reflect on how these compared to the projects that came before, the Greeks, the Romans, the Mayans, the Egyptians and the Chinese.

Really, our works sucks in comparison. This is what I am thinking now.

Most of our projects have life spans of 30-50 years. We are short term thinkers and so will our society be short term. We can’t even afford the simple maintenance for the infrastructure we have now, no less expand it. We can barely serve our population with what we have built. Our highways are falling apart; while at the same time cannot even handle the burden of traffic without causing enormous delays and additional costs to our society due to their inadequateness.

Our water supply systems might last 50 years, while Roman aqueducts still stand today. Our bridges are built to last 40-50 years and must be completely replaced after that time at costs that are up to 100 times more than the original. Case in point the Woodrow Wilson bridge in Washington DC over the Potomac River was built in the 60’s for $30 million and was just rebuilt for $3 billion.

This is shameful when Roman bridges are still standing to this day after 2 thousand years!

We are cheap, short sighted and downright stupid and yet we think we are so advanced over those primitive cultures. Yes I know, many of them used slave labor from wars won, but we replaced slave labor with technology so that is not an excuse. We have enormous technologies that none of them had and this is the best we can do? Yeah we sure are great thinkers.

Although no one person can correct this, perhaps we can all begin 2011 with the idea that we can and should be more serious about what we build. Think longer term and not just about the deadline and the next paycheck.

I and many others were deeply disturbed by the Bush and Obama bailouts during the past few years but this disappointment is exactly what I am speaking about. We can’t even match what our forefathers accomplished in the 1930’s during the Depression with their infrastructure spending boom. They built dams which will likely last 100 years, the Skyline Drive national park which will last 100 years and the TVA power grid which brought electricity to those who did not have it, again which will last 100 years. We can't even match what our grandfathers accomplished no less what these great civilizations did. Sad!

What did we get, some new guardrails and repaving on our otherwise decaying highways. We got some bridge repairs for our 50+ year old falling apart bridges. We got some lights and street signs. We will be lucky if some of these last 5 years!

OK now I am thoroughly disgusted with our leaders and our lack of work quality. So the question of the year is “Why don’t we, with our advanced intellects and education, with our monster advances in technologies and automation, with the wisdoms gained from our forefathers, why don’t we build better infrastructure and facilities for our culture?
Why don’t we build things to last?
 
 

First of all, Merry Christmas to my colleagues in the business! Here we are at the end of a horrendous year of business for most people in engineering, surveying and construction. Land development is all but gone, infrastructure shows promise but could be a mere fleeting tease of what should be. What does 2011 look like from your point of view?

The money that kept many people busy this year was “Obama money” which is essentially gone now. Construction firms based on roadway paving are already letting people go with no idea of when or if they will ever be rehired. This was on the front page of the Washington Post[1].

It is estimated in multiple venues that about 50% of America’s engineers, surveyors, architects and construction personnel are unemployed. How absurdly tragic that in a country that is falling apart that our leaders don’t see the imminent fall of Rome that we are staring at. The longest war in America’s history is the only thing keeping millions of high paid people working right now. The Lockheed Martin’s, Northrop Grumman’s and other DOD contractors are doing quite well, hiring and giving bonuses this Christmas while our infrastructure is caving in around us. Take a look at how many jobs are open at BAE Systems! Top security clearance now trumps education, experience and maybe even who you know. The DC region has many top security job fairs because there are somewhere around 50,000 openings for those with security clearances of varying levels. We have basically become the world’s leader in military, banking and Hollywood and almost nothing else.

The average salary for those with clearance is now around $100K/year in Virginia. And I mean a young person with a 2 year IT degree and security clearance will make $150K/year. Check out the Mantech website for examples, they have 344 jobs open today; just bring your security clearance. These people are saying “what recession?”.

Entitlements, long term unemployment, tax cuts for the rich, Don’t ask don’t tell, Hollywood misfits and Prince William’s wedding are all taking place instead of serious conversation of rejuvenating our economy properly. No one wants a serious conversation because it would illustrate how bad off we are. We would rather put blinders on and just avoid the issue. Those working think there is no recession anymore. I had some colleagues in Northern Virginia tell me they see no signs of a bad economy, the restaurants are full and they are plenty busy. It is understandable that we are doing alright in this region since we are sitting at the seat of the federal government who doesn't work within a budget like the rest of us.

Today’s Washington Post has a cover story on the carpenters in America who can’t get work and none is on the horizon. You could put our industry in that picture, after all it is within the construction family. None of the state D.O.T.’s have money for infrastructure and none of our leaders in government see how this spending would improve our country, our economy and our position in the world.

Right now the people who have government work are doing OK, but 2011 is looking real scary even to them. Municipalities, counties, states and the Feds have run out of money and they haven’t redone their budgets based on a recessionary level of taxation yet. That will happen next year and they will have to live within their means, unless another massive bailout occurs. We are talking massive government layoffs in 2011.

Some positive lights way down the tunnel may comprise energy, high tech and high speed rail. A lot of energy projects have commenced such as the PATH, shale exploration and wind farms. High tech is improving during this recession as we all must get more done with less staff. High speed rail shows a lot of promise and we are currently seeing a lot of activity in this area. The Feds just put out a $2.2B grant for high speed rail. One billion went to California and 1 billion went to Florida. The remaining was scattered around to be wisely spent I am sure on yet another study.

Realize that it costs $250M to build 1 mile of rail tunnel and you will see that this $2B is a pittance. China, our local banker and lender, is building 22KM per day of new high speed rail. Eleven percent of their GDP goes toward infrastructure, India is putting about the same into theirs. America is lucky to have 2% going to this, however around 1/3 of our money goes to defense, 1/3 goes to entitlements leaving 1/3 for everything else.

We recenty saw two counties in Virginia, Loudoun and Fairfax, where the education stimulus money was given to existing teachers for raises, rather than hiring back laid off teachers which was the intended purpose. They said they haven’t had a raise in two years. Greed, entitlement, corruption, waste and mismanagement are the only words I can think of to describe where we are at now.

What do you all think, is work picking up and if so, is it enough to sustain our industry?  Is it enough to fix our infrastructure and take it to the next level? If not should we all begin looking for work in China and India? No can’t do that, we don’t have the qualifications. America knows little about high speed rail and we can’t even care for our own infrastructure. But we know about Price William’s wedding don’t we?

So guys/gals where are we at as we enter 2011?
How are you feeling about next year’s work load?
Are we headed in the right direction for our industry, which is also the industry of America’s future?

Laser Scanning Will Soon Replace Traditional Surveying

Traditional surveying with total station (reflectorless or not) is coming to an end. OK I said it. Based on several conversations I have recently had with surveyors, this is becoming more true every day. The president of a 50 person survey firm told me last week that he foresees a near future day where standard, traditional surveying will be essentially over.

Laser scanning can shoot hundreds of feet radially from the gun’s position and capture detail unheard of by total stations, all in just a few minutes. If you capture calibrated pictures with the scan you will obtain ever increasing value from the cloud.

I find it interesting that about half the people I chat with about scanning have guns that are severely underused. Others are in use every day.

Based on this I venture to say that these people don’t know how to use the technology, don’t know how to sell it or don’t know what to do to extend the value of the cloud to their clients. Perhaps the problem is that they use the cloud for an explicit purpose, perform that function and then allow the cloud to die a rapid death due to non-use. The cloud should be pushed into production and the vast majority of scanner users do not understand this seemingly obvious fact.

Think out of the box for this emerging technology.  In my opinion a point cloud should be valued as being better than a surface model. As well it should, it contains far more information than does a DTM. They contain highly densified points, RGB values, intensity and background images. We should be demanding far more activity and deliverables from the clouds we shoot and process.

What additional uses have you all found from point cloud data? All of the major manufacturer’s now support them in one way or another. Research this and select the best solution(s) for now and the near term. This is one technology that isn’t going away, in fact except for minor augmenting of the data that the scanner can’t see well; it will rapidly replace traditional surveying.

Please don’t scoff at this, LIDAR has already replaced huge segments of traditional surveying and safety rises dramatically when scanning is used on highways and intersections. It is here to stay and will usurp more survey hours.

For a more detailed essay on Laser scanning see the upcoming article on this topic in December’s Site Prep magazine.

The recession has been long and hard and it isnt even remotely over yet. Many people have been caught short when they are laid off, some even shocked. I know people who are now laid off that were kingpins in their companies and were laid off because of a salary that can no longer be absorbed or for some other non-performance related issue. They were absolutely shocked when the word came down. So here are a few items to watch out for and some questions that should be asked. Please add your own tips to this blog.

• - Don’t use company emails for anything except company business. If you leave your job no one can reach you. Create your own non-company based email address with Gmail, MSN, AOL or other. Also watch out for comcast or other commercial email accounts in the event you terminate their service or move to another. Gmail, MSN etc. will still be there.
• - Do not use company equipment for anything except company work. No non-company internet use at all! This can be tracked and you don't want to give them any excuses to declare that you are not working 100% for the company.
• - If you are not busy sell yourself within the company, take on extra tasks and increase your skillset while on the job. Yes it is difficult but you will lose access to assets once you are laid off.
• - Learn all of the software you possibly can. When you are laid off many companies are looking for skills they do not have so they can lower their learning curve with less formal training. You will lose access to all of your software the minute you are let go. Software is extremely expensive and including maintenance costs can cost $4,000 for basic AutoCAD, $7,500 for Civil 3D, $9,500 for Bentley PowerGEOPAK, $9,000 for Carlson Takeoff, $18,000 for Cyclone, etc. Even Microsoft Office runs around $600. So the costs are not in the laptop you can buy, rather it is in the enormous cost of the software for our industry where you get stymied.
• - Do you own a house or rent? If you get laid off can you relocate easily to a region that has a better chance of employment or are you locked into your location due to a mortgage or a house you can not readily sell? If you rent you can easily relocate because you have no strings to hold you.
• - Are you taking advantage of tuition reimbursement offered by your company?
• - How is your credit record? Fix it now while you are employed because it is impossible to fix when you have no incoming paycheck.
• - What is your car payment, can you sell it and buy a used car with no payments?
• - Unemployment pays about $400/week, have you tested your finances with this amount of income? What is the deficit that remains? How will you augment it?
• - Inspect your insurance, can you afford COBRA if you are laid off? If not what is your plan?
• - Look ahead at the work the company has now, what work is coming in but hasn’t hit yet.
• - How long can the current workload sustain the existing staff and management?
• - Look at the marketing occurring, what is the statistical hit rate the company historically has, does the math add up?
• - How many short lists is the company on?
• - How many bids went out, how many short lists resulted?
• - How many licensed staff members are left, are you redundant or critical?
• - How many staff members are left with similar skills as yours, are you redundant or critical?
• - Do you have a company car AND a personal car or just a company car. If you are let go, what will you do for transportation?
• - Is your resume up to date? Many are not and a delay occurs after layoff in trying to assemble one.
• - Has your company kept its technology up to date or is all of the money going into salaries?
• - Has your company acquired new technology or is it status quo?
• - At the end of the year does surplus money go to bonuses for management or does it get re-invested into the company?
• - Is the company holding onto its core competencies or have they expanded into new service offerings?
• - Is the company policy to lay off more experienced and higher salaried staff in order to bring in lower salaried staff? What is the stated policy for staff re-alignment?
• - What is your working personality? Are you the one that stays out of the way and doesn’t bring attention to yourself or are you the one running around declaring how busy you are and how the company would have to replace you with 3 people?
• - Basically do your job, do it well, show up on time, be pleasant to work with, volunteer to help with tasks and chores and continually acquire credentials. Following that the rest is up to fate, luck and inter-personal relationships.

Please post a response to add your tips to the industry.

 

Finally the survey business is picking up. Are we headed back to the good old days of 5 years ago? No! However, we are now seeing surveyors working again.  Mortgage rates have come down to a historic low point, and many homeowners are seeking to refinance their loans. Rates sitting around 3.75% for a 30-year loan naturally increases the amount of survey work on those properties. So this is good news but is tightly tied to the whim of the government who holds the reins of the rate being charged.
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