California Surveyors Forums

Phil:

I understand the meaning of the word unintentional. I find it interesting you ascribe meaning and motive, practically innocence, to their illegal practices. I will assume there is no evidence any of these acts are unintentional. Of course, these acts are neither innocent nor unintentional. As evidence, we are tested for minimum competence. We find folks that do not conform to the most basic boundary principles for which they are tested. We find folks – as this thread was started – that skirt of the law. They would not try to skirt the law with “approximate corners” if they did not understand the law. No sir, they clearly understand the law and the required practice protocols.

Phil, like Diogenes before you, take up the lamp and begin your search for one honest man. I have had plenty of conversations with these folks – from Humboldt to San Diego and all points between. They have varying tacks or rationalizations, but darn few of them practice unintentionally. No, they are quite deliberate – they are riding dirty and will continue to do so, oftentimes after promising to turn over a new leaf. When a land surveyor builds the book of business based on being the least cost, they have defined their relationship with the client. Should the land surveyor decide to go straight and begin to file records of survey or no longer provide a legally undefined “record boundary” with the topographic map, set monuments with tags, and so forth their costs will necessarily increase. The increase in costs does not conform with their client’s expectations and the relationships they have defined. Therein lies the rub. These folks with dishonest business models oftentimes have a lifestyle they have become accustomed. The land surveyors we are talking about are dishonest, nothing more, nothing less. Their dishonest practices put a tremendous amount of pressure on honest business that must compete with their unsanitary practices.

It should be offensive – it certainly is to me - to any honest professional to have you call illegal and dishonest practices “mostly unintentional”. I have known several honest land surveyors that simply could not compete with these dishonest folks and ultimately, had to retire or take a position within a public agency. Their individual integrity meant more than keeping their business on life support. Folks reading the forum may not know that we have been friends for many years. I have a good sense as to how you practice – a professional land surveyor running a straight game. Like any honest businessman, I also believe you have faced the business challenges in your local area – how can you not? I firmly believe that a man with your integrity, skills, education and experience should not ever struggle for honest work in Sonoma or Marin County. It is like Stockholm syndrome – you have began to identify with your captor, developed a sense of empathy for their unfiled two monument tango surveys.

Again, with the honest folks gone, who will mentor the next generation? More importantly, who will want to be in an honest business only to see it fail? Rhetorical questions.

I will get to the solutions.

DWoolley

Dave.

I guess it is all just black and white with you. You might want to go back and re-read what I wrote.

Surveying is more art than science. And when it comes to boundaries - is not always black and white.

And yes . . . the low ballers relieve me of some Shekels too . . . but I don't let it get my panties in a wad. 'Not in this business to live like I own a Gulfstream.

So I take the . . . "fishman must have patience, Grasshopper", approach.

If what you say about these "dishonest" practitioners is absolute - I would assume BPELSG would ask he/she to surrender his/her license. (Less competition, huh?)

Many of my competitors "bounce stuff" off me. I try to be approachable. I try to be respectful. And most of all - I remind myself that I do not walk on water. (We are all human . . . and as such - not infallible.)

Ahhhhhh but solutions . . .

Thanks for your response.

Phil

There are several issues facing the land surveying profession. To offer a solution I will first define the issue.

Issue One

Look at your employer, practice, public agencies, other firms and inventory their professional licensees (“PLS”) and land surveyors in training (“LSIT”). Riddle yourself this, do you own or are you working in a chop shop?

Land surveying, described earlier as an art and science, straddles the line between being a trade and/or a profession. I believe many of the professional issues stem from the trade side of the house i.e. construction related work and the support work of other professionals i.e. engineers and architects. The trade land surveyors (“TLS”) tend to work and think in terms of subservient support roles. The TLS, those responsible for generating their own market, find themselves competing for work based on a low bid model that, in its best form, rewards efficiencies. These folks tend to believe their business is thwarted by standards and regulations. There is a fine line between efficiencies that are innovative and expand the use the technology and irresponsible corner cutting. These folks tend to use technology, but oftentimes do not understand the technology. A classic, often repeated example, is the knee slapper their RTK/RTN GPS repeatedly produces results accurate to 0.01’ to 0.04’ (a claim made with no understanding of one or two sigma).

The other TLS that do not have to compete in the market place i.e. (those provided work and serve under the direction of engineers and lesser so, contractors or architects) have their budgets set by their principles and generally, survey until they are out of money. Once the allocated budget is gone, the standards and regulations, again, become the burden. The engineers set the budget that excludes, say, a record of survey and the surveyor simply complies with the engineers/contractors/architects command without so much as batting an eye.

The TLS firms tend to have a higher ratio of employees to licensees. For example, I knew a firm that was running eighteen crews statewide under the responsible charge of one professional land surveyor. It stands to reason, licensees cost more money, education to make licensees cost more money, the single or lower ratios of licenses to employees is only a necessary cog in the low budget model. Also, a licensee, bent on lawful practices, will oftentimes quickly find herself on the outer circle if she was to raise a professional practice issue.

There are numerous examples that could be written, resulting in several pages, on the damage the trade firms, the TLS, have caused the professional practice firms (“PPF”). The PPF can perform the trade work, but the opposite is generally not true. Oftentimes, the PPF are not willing to cut corners to compete – if for no other reason there are not enough corners to cut to be competitive with the TLS. Generally, the PPF are responsible for generating their own work, setting their own budgets and are unaffected by the practice whims of other professionals and the contractors – they do not compete in the low bid arena (mostly because they cannot). However, they tend to value and encourage licensure as they embrace land surveying as a profession, not a trade.

The Solution

Look at your employer, practice, public agencies, other firms and inventory their professional licensees (“PLS”) and land surveyors in training (“LSIT”). Riddle yourself this, do you own or are you working in a chop shop?

Employers must demand and reward licensure. Set minimum hiring standards that includes an LSIT or an LSIT in the first few years and a PLS once the experience has been acquired. The employers must have the personal security to hire people smarter than themselves. Hire folks with an education in anything – like most baristas at Starbucks. Critical thinking, reading, writing and arithmetic education is quite common now. As the profession no longer supports the single function draftsman, the profession no longer has room for unlicensed folks and especially, the unlicensed folks that will never be capable of licensure. The fork in the road is those sitting for and capable of passing their LSIT and those that will necessarily become unemployed. Land surveying is not a corporate welfare program.

How did it ever become acceptable to allow someone to work for 4, 8, 12 years or more and not sit for a six-hour LSIT?

The employers must test their staff to see where they sit on the spectrum and be prepared to summarily purge the deficient or alternatively, mentor them to professional proficiency. The National Society of Professional Surveyors has an exam series named the Certified Survey Technician (“CST”) with both field and office exams. The exams are not intended to be an equivalency of an LSIT, as no certification should be accepted as an equivalency for licensure/pre-licensure, but the exam will tell an employee or an employer where their skills reside. In addition, the administration of a CST exam creates a company culture that states the employer values education and demands minimum competency licensure - something far more important than a catchy mission statement or byline on the company letterhead that encompasses a nomenclature fad i.e reusable, renewable, green, future related tomorrows, anything current and catchy that nobody but the marketing staff really buys into. Some of the firms with the trendy quips unabashedly hawk their unlicensed staff as being qualified to their clients. In their defense, it is much easier to write a catch phrase in the marketing department than to train and test staff for minimum competency.

The public agencies are bound by the qualification-based selection (“QBS”) process - they must not hire contract surveyors that do not meet their own minimum hiring standards. In doing so, they reward low skilled, no standards, firms that have placed zero licensure demands on their staff. Of course, this no standards hiring is to their own public agency determent when their vacancies go unfilled because potential candidates do not meet the minimum qualifications to apply for the positions. Arguably, these same public agencies are in a moral hazard by hiring teams that cannot themselves meet their hiring minimum requirements. Why would a public agency reward any firm that allows folks to stand around 5, 10 , 15 years that cannot be bothered with a 6 hour LSIT exam? Ludicrous on its face. The public agencies must demand better from the contract survey firms they hire and in turn, the profession will be elevated by the licensees and their hiring pool will expand.

In the alternative to testing, businesses can continue the no LSIT/PLS standards practices and their TLS business model to the profession's own peril. We nearly saw the profession deregulated last year with SB 556 after being rewritten by several trade unions claiming portions of the professional practice defined under Business and Professions Code 8726. The TLS plays into this version of deregulation. The trade union has described to the United States Dept. of Labor the surveyors as being incapable of judgement and discretion in the execution of their duties. The same argument can be made to deregulate the profession.

There has been a number of attempts to deregulate the profession in other states. The California Little Hoover Commission has recommended deregulation of licensing practices under the theory the license primarily serves as a barrier to entry for the have-nots. Objectively looking at the land surveying profession demographics (lacking representative numbers of women and minorities), the lack of minimum credentials in many businesses (how effective is one licensee running 18 crews statewide), the lack of mimimum testing standards in the employee ranks, the lawlessness of practitioners in geographic regions, the BPELSG staff's failure to issues citations on 65% of the complaints and frankly, regardless of any contrary truths, it would appear licensure of land surveyors is a protectionists measure for, arguably, flim-flam operations. The land surveying profession is practically begging to be deregulated - notwithstanding our overly inflated egos as to our importance to society and the failure to implement testing standards in private firms for minimum competency.

Phil, there is one issue and the solution.

DWoolley

The youngins are the future of the profession.
They don't want to see deregulation.

I spoke to a kid yesterday, former employee now working in Nevada. The Nevada Association of Land Surveyors (NALS) has an active younger community. They also participate in the Young Surveyors Network, part of the NSPS. Social media is active with younger surveyors posting photos and tidbits of their daily activities, some of it educational as well. It is spilling over into Linkedin.

I see a lot of licensees in my number range crapping the bed repeatedly and routinely. Two monument tango maps creating encroachments in areas of decades long acquiescence, corner records filed based on splitting curbs, proposals with fees less than half what I'd charge in say Marin County.

There are those coming up that are hungry to learn, active in their Associations. Let's leave it to them, but mentor them properly.

Lots of bad mentoring going on, if any at all.

And, I subscribe to Mr. Wooley's point of view. I recently made some personnel decisions based exactly on what Dave is saying.

Issue Two - Manipulation

Manipulation of the personnel, the public and the law.

As mentioned above, the land surveying community has inadequately mentored the employees - as demonstrated by a lack of LSITs among the staff. The antithesis is a firm with a high ratio of licensees to employees and LSITs among the technical staff, office and field alike. The community has traditionally had poor recruiting standards and allowed their ranks to be populated by professionally illiterate people that presumably could not pass an LSIT and certainly, not a PLS exam. This is a form of employee manipulation. Well trained, credentialed staff has professional options and opportunities – the employer’s personal interest is better served by shackling an employee to their firm using ignorance for employee retention. A private firm has captured and is manipulating their staff by limiting their staff training, nonexistent testing requirements, exposure to professional education and associations, thereby limiting their employee’s options – at a cost to the professional stature of the land surveying profession. To their credit, nearly all public agencies have minimum hiring standards that requires an LSIT to simply apply for a position.

It gets worse, much worse. We should be able to agree on the premise professional land surveying requires discerning technical knowledge coupled with professional integrity.

These same private employers tell their inquisitive employees and the public alike manipulative lies or lies by omission. A common example is “we do not have to file a record of survey because we didn’t set monuments” (hence, approximate corners as shown on this thread). Of course, this refrain has never been true. These same employers sign ALTA certifications stating they have achieved the required accuracies despite the fact they measured the monuments with a RTN GPS system with a base more than ten kilometres away. For those unfamiliar, the ALTA standard is 0.07’ at two sigma with 50PPM. An RTN GPS system is incapable of achieving this standard to which the “professional” is certifying and yet, it is not entirely uncommon to see this equipment misused on the regular. The same employee is led to believe this methodology is acceptable or worse, it is acceptable to be dishonest on a certification. The employees are led to believe a boundary can be established by any two monuments in the same county and routinely place the undefined “record boundary” on field surveyed mapping. Technical land surveying takes time and education – both of which does not serve the employers personal self-serving interest. Several pages could be written documenting the manipulation of technical standards and procedures that serve to the determinant of the employees and the public.

One-Person Crew

Next, one-person field crews. There is a school of thought land surveyors are apprenticed (mentored to a lesser degree) – as opposed to being formally educated. The technology allows for most work to be completed using one person. Technically possible is not the same as professionally responsible. Clearly, it is unsafe in many instances. Especially when reading the current distracted driver accident statistics. A sleepy street is only safe if it is closed. A one-person crew member looking down at a controller is not safe unless they are standing in a wide open field or on a sidewalk. Who benefits from a one-person crew? Who is being apprenticed? Is the one-person crew member licensed? Who replaces the one-person crew member upon an untimely death or retirement? Again, this is an unsafe manipulation of the employees to serve a business model, not a profession. The noted exception is the sole proprietor. It is still America (sorta) and if someone chooses to endanger their own life, full steam ahead.

Sophisticated Firms

In a sophisticated firm the employee manipulation takes a different form. These firms often righteously tout their professional qualifications (notwithstanding the fact they provide unlicensed staff to their sophisticated clients). They manipulate their staff by imposing crushing utilizations rates, often 85%, on their technicians and professionals i.e. (a utilization rate is 85% billable time requirements coupled with a 3.0 multiplier - the employees hourly pay rate times 3.0). An example, an employee making $40 per hour must be billed to a client at $120 per hour for 34 hours per week, 52 weeks per year. It sounds simple enough. However, an employee that works full time, has some sick leave, vacation etc. and is billable for every hour has a 92% utilization rate. Recalculating the allowed unbillable time, 92%-85% times 2080 hours equals 145 hours annually or 3 hours per week. Factoring in the unbillable staff meetings, unbillable coordinating, unbillable phone calls etc. and the employee often has to work 45 to 50 hours minimum – 5 to 10 hours off the clock to meet the utilization rate. Projects are expected to be completed and delivered regardless of the inadequate budget. In practice the employee shoulders the burden of the employer’s risk and the employer enjoys the benefits of a profit. As the project works its way down the organizational chart the employee with the least amount of power is forced to work off the clock, cut the corners and is taught to succeed is to master the manipulation of others if you want to be part of “the pool”, referring to a bonus pool that oftentimes does not make up for the hours worked - the lower the level, the less "pool". The more manipulative or higher manipulative potential will put you on the path to being an “associate”. For the ambitious, those willing work sixty hours a week on a salary, willing to indoctrinate and manipulate the subordinate staff may one day be a partner (more on partnership later - teaser, if you are buying a signatory firm you are also buying the unfunded pension liability, look into it). An employee may not learn to survey, but that is not necessarily a prerequisite to becoming management.

Simplified version of gaming the client and the employee is a project manager, not always a land surveyor, sets a “competitive” budget that may not be sufficient to comply with the law or professional practice standards. The employees, legally classified as salaried employees, are constrained to the budget and the utilization rates – meaning if they spend more than their allocated 3 hours of unbillable time per week they have to make up the billable time after 40 hours or bill a client on a project they have not worked on (it happens). Of course, besides being dishonest, the prebilling only puts that underbudgeted project in the hole and will require more time donation at a later date. The side "benefit" to their business model is the employer begins to blur the ethical lines for the employee - this is their form of mentoring. In reality, this is very much to the determent of a developing professional - any time spent reading, discussing, researching complex land surveying material has to be made up in the evenings or over a weekend to serve the utilization rate. As it stands, these employees often work to many hours off the clock and the time required to understand complex technical material comes at a steep price, both personally and professionally. The understanding of technical material will often further burden a nonexistent budget - the project manager is not going to reward this diligence.

It is not uncommon to have the best at the employee manipulation to have low levels of technical skills. Frankly speaking, they do not need the skills and technical knowledge actually can make their staff manipulation job more difficult. The mentored person learns, above all else, that the budget, making money, controls the professional decision process. In theory, it was not intended to be that way by the management. However, the slippery slope is greased by individual pool participants, the company's sweatshop culture, budgets based on hourly staff working over 50 hours per week and holding staff to the utilization rates.

The millennials, to their credit, are crashing these business models. A lack of younger workers, besides a handful of manipulated token millennials, is a hallmark of these firms. It is not uncommon to see these firms with a recruiting booth. For the uninitiated, simply ask the recruiters three questions:

1. Do you have utilization rates?
2. How many hours a week do you work?
3. If I work at your company, will I be a salaried employee? If not, will I work for a salaried employee? If you aspire to one day move up, that is the job you move into.

Understanding that lying, including lying by omission, is framed differently within the company (competitive). Ask yourself, who benefits? Where is the commitment to the technical education? If a person chooses to work there because they have sold their fun culture (complete with company picnic photos), possibly a car allowance, an office with a window and maybe, a promise to one day be in “the pool” if you play your cards right, well, the employee gets what she deserves - missed family obligations, distant friendships, weddings, birthdays, etc.

Lastly, on the lower end, there are firms that do not pay:

1. The travel time as required by law.
2. Education cost – either tuition or seminar cost or paid time off or any portion thereof.
3. Or, a golden oldie, working hourly employees off the clock. One version of this sham goes like this “we have only budgeted 8 hours, if you cannot get it done in eight hours we’ll have someone else do the work and you will be off for the day.” These jobs may have 10 hours budgeted, but the job takes 12 hours, everyone know it and the time sheet will show 8 hours.

The last 3 are usually represented employees subject to a collective bargaining agreement. Although represented, they are unlikely to find relief and run the real risk of being blackballed.

Do these folks make up the majority of the employers? You tell me. If a professional chooses the path described above and a country club membership is your idea of the pinnacle of success, the blue print to success is easy to read.

Public agencies, although bound by the QBS laws, that hire these firms - hawking uncredentialed staff and selling employee hours - are complicit in perpetuating their business models.

The Solutions
[to be continued…]

Very, very good!

it is due to Modern math.

willing to purchase $1,000,000 property and improvements - yup
pays Realtor 6%($60,000) for the transaction - yup
pays 1-2k to know where it is, possible encroachments, etc, - nope

using old school math that is 0.1-0.2% of purchase or 3% of the realtor commission. Hmmm, wouldn't a realtor be willing to spend 3% for liability, nah that would make sense.

maybe if we could lobby the insurance industry to reduce real estate liability coverage if the realtor's required surveys on all property transactions.

We tried that many times over the last 40 years. The Real Estate industry fought us and beat us on that issue. Anything that delays the sale and these folks not receiving their commission was the major impediment.

The Solutions

Issue Two – Manipulation. Manipulation of the personnel, the public and the law.

The Lay of the Land

I believe the millennials will deliver the necessary changes to the manipulative business models. I have convinced myself the astute millennials – educated, curious, team oriented with expectations of honesty and transparency - will not be baited into sweatshop utilization rates. They must scoff at the decoy token millennials splashed onto a company’s website (clearly, another form of manipulation). They will readily recognize the detriment to their careers by a firm’s separation of “field” and “office” opportunities. Any aspiring professional surveyor that sees these two functions, office and field, as separate operations will realize it is not a long-term opportunity. To willingly do more than 2-3 years, depending on the economy, in that separated office and field system – regardless of their personal preference – will silo their skillsets. The real opportunity provides and encourages the semiprofessional to rotate, on a weekly, monthly or project basis, between the field and office. There is no such thing as a field surveyor or an office surveyor, simply a professional land surveyor after licensure. The best professionals will be well rounded in their skill sets.

I am hopeful the millennials will not tolerate technical incompetency in management. If a supervisor does not have technical skills, in a mentoring profession, what is the subordinate hoping to learn? How to sell hours to unsuspecting clients? Walk away.

Separation of the Disciplines

Another part of the solution is the separation of the disciplines. The land surveyors may not be able to realize their potential being subordinate in an engineering company. The land surveying and engineering business models are necessarily different. There is a reason the biggest engineering companies often do not have in-house land surveying. It simply doesn’t make good business sense.

The independent land surveyors are much better off negotiating their services directly with the owners. The land surveyors should avoid subcontracting to contractors and engineers – each have a vested interest in suppressing the land surveyor’s services and the associated costs. Good land surveyors will work on the management side of the project – either part of the construction management team and/or directly with the project owner. Their role on the management side is to protect the project design and ensure construction integrity – much more akin to an inspector. The contractor is primarily looking to cut cost (low bid) and by self-performing land surveying work. There is an inherent conflict when a non-principle/owner land surveyor is working for the design engineer. Both situations (i.e. working for contractors and in-house design engineers) is not in the best interest of the project owner. A land surveyor has a moral hazard and is not able to exercise the professional judgment being subordinate to either party.

Viking Funerals

The aging firm’s owners/partners must leave on their own or in a pine box. Either out creates an opportunity to change the business model of the future - they can't take it with them. The millennial, like a vulture on limb watching a drought thirsty cow lay down for the last time, needs to understand Boomer owners are concerned with their legacy and more so, putting the last $5 into a 401k (their kid’s will enjoy upon death). What happens when nobody wants to buy their interest? The truth is nobody cares about a professional’s legacy - professional land surveyors’ impact and careers are not memorable outside of their immediate circle. Their ability to make money selling hours and manipulating staff over the last thirty years is unlikely to be able to be replicated in the future - largely due to changing market dynamics. The sucker millennial that buys into salaried hours with hopes of becoming an “associate” may find chasing money, selling hours, in exchange for technical competence and family absenteeism unsavory and dissatisfying. This sweatshop business model is becoming unsustainable. Walk away. I am betting millennials will not buy into it.

The future land surveyor will focus on being of service to the community by working directly for project owners and providing value through technical sophistication and expertise in exchange for a reasonable profit. This model places the emphasis on licensure, competency and professional stature, not staff manipulation and the pawning of unlicensed staff to clients as billable hours, especially on public works projects.

The public sector will provide the leadership model by demanding technical competence from the contract land surveyors they hire.

DWoolley

Next issue, poor recruiting standards. The land surveying community has recruited and sustained folks that are not capable of licensure. It is time to purge.

The Issue

Poor recruiting standards. I find it interesting to hear how folks found land surveying. On a recent thread, three exceptional people I have been fortunate enough to know wrote interesting posts on their background and their individual introductions to land surveying. These three people have each had a positive role in mentoring me in my career. It was interesting to know their story.

Anecdotally, I have found many land surveyors came to the profession later in life. It is not uncommon to find folks entering the profession in their late 20s or mid-30s. It is equally common to find a formerly unsettled son-in-law, son, daughter, nephew etc. that could not quite get on with their life. A criminal history is not a surprise (not judging, simply a common thread). The land surveying dad, uncle, father in law may be providing financial assistance – therefore, the prevailing logic is to ask the leisurely former C-/D+ student (“C-/D+”) to work it off at the office. The idea of their son, daughter or nephew grinding a minimum wage job, sleeping on the family couch, is often too much to bear. Hence, another “surveyor” is added to the payroll.

Generally, a C-/D+ has the self-awareness to know their various deficiencies. They are often content to grind out a living, between bong rips, without putting forth much effort to become educated and/or licensed. Being the boss’s son or daughter (in law) moves the C-/D+ into management. These folks were never management material and yet, …res ipsa loquitur. Contributors to the forum may find writing about the C-/D+ awkward, worry not, C-/D+ do not spend much time reading forums and most certainly, not writing.

The Solution

Hire smart ambitious people. Self-starters that will likely be successful regardless of their chosen vocation. The common refrain at any place of employment should be “if I ever look at you from across the room and think ‘you’ll never be licensed’, you’ll be gone”. The days of recruiting strong backs and weak minds has passed. The days of hiring field only or office only staff has passed. These field and office segregated firms are hanging out in 1985 – what business model from 1985 has thrived or survived? The sophisticated contracting firms or the public agencies bound by Qualification Based Selection now realize these segregated firms do not prioritize or encourage licensure and therefore, contracting with these firms rewards complacency and sloth. In fact, hiring these segregated firms is against their own best interest. Especially when their open positions go unfilled because there are no qualified candidates i.e. Caltrans. The best firms, committed to professional standards, will provide licensed field staff to the public agencies. This program will come to be known as “no credentials, no work”.

In my own experience, I have hired the C-/D+ folks. More often that not, it was like throwing money down a well and ultimately, weakened the company structure. Frankly, I think I was one of these so called C-/D+ folks (minus the bong rips and criminal history). The true test will be if either of my sons grow up to be losers will I hire them to get them off my couch? The hypocrisy remains to be seen.

Finding Recruits

Where do we find good recruits? Approximately five or six years ago I placed an advertisement on Craiglist that read like:
Wanted: An attorney that graduated from a tier one law school with four to five years of big firm experience to train as a land surveyor. Candidates must submit a writing sample to be considered for a position. [the ad went on to outline a pay scale, benefits and the general duties of a land surveyor, including a combination of field and office work].

We had 34 applications. Being an attorney, if they can land a job, is not about saving the world or seeking justice on behalf of the downtrodden. No sir, it is a miserable grind for all but a few people. Private firms have crushing billing standards, generally, 180 hours per month plus an expectation the associate will develop a book of business i.e. writing newsletter articles, speaking luncheons, golf outings etc. Translated, this means about 220-230 hours of work per month. At the time, the state of California paid an Attorney I approximately $68,000 annually – a highly competitive position. Why wouldn’t these make for good recruits? They can read and write. Land surveying, in many respects, is a much better job than grinding away hours at a big law firm.
We need to clean up our ranks. No reading, no writing, no job. No license, no job.

I welcome other perspectives, especially a contrary opinion.

DWoolley

Dave,
Did you hire any of these attorneys, and if so, how did they work out?
Ed

Ed Reading:

At the time we ran the advertisement we were not hiring. I was sampling the waters as an experiment.

We are looking at hiring after the first of the year. We plan on running a similar advertisement for the position. A person trained in the law can read and write, understands the importance of research and will likely enjoy the field and office aspects of land surveying.

Thank you for the question. I will keep you posted on our results.

Sincerely,

DWoolley

PS the next issue will be to address the disorganization or lack of organization within the profession.