Conference Topics

[Warren Smith]

Michael, like I am, is a pre 82 land surveyor. That was a cause that CLSA took up with gusto.
The evolution of technology has dramatically improved our tools, but the charge to retrace our predecessors' footsteps remains.
To have to adjudicate our work speaks ill of our ability to professionally cater to our clients' needs and communicate effectively.

[mpallamary]

Thank you Connie for your kind words. I do not feel a need to impress anyone with my credentials. I was a representative on the board some forty years ago and I am one of the few active members at my age. I am very proud of the work I have done for the last forty years and I served on many committees.

As you know I have spent thousands of hours advancing the interests of surveyors in California and across the country. I am devoted to the advancement of the profession I have been in for more than 51 years.

The work you and others are doing are important. We need fresh blood and new ideas. It is my hope, once again, to stimulate others into having important dialogues like this. As a general rule, when one has nothing to contribute, they resort to ad hominem attacks. Unfortunately, it does not advance the cause.

Again, thank you for your kind words. Happy Holidays! Every day is a gift!

[mpallamary]

Connie, you brought back some memories. At the risk of vanity, I thought I would share some history with you, lest my actions be misconstrued.

I have been in the surveying profession since 1971. I was 19 years old the first time I have testified as an expert. I have since testified or been deposed in excess of 150 times.

I lectured and wrote a book with Curt Brown 35 years ago. Curt is considered an important individual in the land surveying profession. Curt bequeathed all of his intellectual property to me, with the exception of the two books he wrote for Wiley. I am very proud of my work with him. He was a good friend.

Back in 1991, I organized and prepared the amicus curiae brief on behalf of CLSA when we were involved with defining the laws on boundary line adjustments. It resulted in a very important published decision.

I have delivered five lectures this year to attorneys on real property law, easements, property surveying, and the surveying profession.

I am headed out to Indiana next month to deliver two days of lectures at their annual conference.

During the onset of COVID, I wrote/recompiled an old dime novel involving a railroad surveyor. It is very popular and it was fun to work on.

Mostly I am proud of my son Justin. He has just been promoted to the regional manager for Psomas in Southern California.

I turn 69 in January and I remain devoted to the surveying profession. We have a lot of work to do!

[TTaylor]

Just being consistent.

Conference Topic: Ethics

Stan Myron. a nom de plume used by a chicken sh!t to attack people and ideas without exposing their real identity. I'm pretty sure i know who masquerades as Stan Myron.

[mpallamary]

David,

As much as I appreciate you noting my shortcomings, I am doing the best I can to advance the association. I have a very active business and I spend as much time as I can with my children and grandchildren. Still, I find time to do what I can, besides offering comments on the forum.

You will find a copy of the most recent article I wrote for the CALSURVEYOR. I invested a considerable amount of time for this article as CLSA and I thought this was an important topic.

I have also attached a copy of a White Paper I shepherded on Site Plans as I and others felt that too was an important subject for California Surveyors to consider. That also took a great deal of time, oftentimes requiring me to work late at night and get up very early in the morning.

Lastly I have attached one of the first articles I wrote for the CALSURVEYOR back in 1985, 37 years ago. Since then I have written many more, all for the benefit of CLSA. If you are interested in reading them, they are all available through the CLSA website.

In addition, I have found time to write several books including the works of Curt Brown. If you have not seen it or read it, I will gladly send you a copy at no charge. As I am sure you know, I offered to sell this book through CLSA at a discount but they declined. (Who is Stan Myron?)

I offered to share the articles Brown wrote through the CLSA website, but the BOD declined that too. (Who is Stan Myron?)

In any event, I realize these ongoing efforts may not reach the level of active participation as others who also contribute their time and resources to the enhancement of the profession. We do what we can do and we smile when we are doing it.

Happy Holidays!

[Warren Smith]

Who is John Galt?

[Peter Ehlert]

Who is John Galt?

LOL

[CBarrett]

Oh man, I just had a discussion about Ayn Rand last week in a book club, a very good one. Having grown up in a communist counter not greatly unlike hers, thete some interesting aspects that get missed by life long westerners.
Anyhow, sorry, this is a digression. Back to conference topics.

[David Kendall]

As much as I appreciate you noting my shortcomings, I am doing the best I can to advance the association. I have a very active business and I spend as much time as I can with my children and grandchildren. Still, I find time to do what I can, besides offering comments on the forum.

Thank you for the CV. No one is disputing your immense contributions to the profession of Land Surveying. I take issue with your claim that CLSA BOD is rejecting all of your great ideas when I find that to be a false narrative. I helped to distribute your Site Plan White Paper BTW and invested a great deal of chapter meeting time discussing the merits of it. I couldn't care less about your shortcomings, I have my own to worry about.

From the personal email I wasted my time writing to you last night when you emailed me to say that you didn't want to have this conversation on the forum (when apparently you do):

It’s time to move forward now.

I stand by what I said in my post. I apologize if you received the message as a personal attack but that’s on you. My message was not intended as an insult but I am defensive because I invest personal resources into CLSA and I believe it has value.

I don’t believe that you have any quarrel with the current board of directors. Please do not continue to publicly disparage the association because you are sore over past accounting. This is not constructive behavior and I find it offensive because it doesn’t advance the profession (which you state as a goal), it only divides us further.

If you want to continue to wave the MP flag and dramatize your victimization over 5+ year old transgressions that have nothing to do with "so-called modern times" as you state in your OP then go ahead but please leave the current CLSA board of directors out of it.

This campaign only serves to cloud your relevance to the "so-called modern times". Knock it off!

[CBarrett]

Michael, like I am, is a pre 82 land surveyor. That was a cause that CLSA took up with gusto.
The evolution of technology has dramatically improved our tools, but the charge to retrace our predecessors' footsteps remains.
To have to adjudicate our work speaks ill of our ability to professionally cater to our clients' needs and communicate effectively.

Exactly, laws and court system is a mechanism to deal with the lowest levels of competence, after all else has failed.

It's laudable that we have people involved in this, and in trying to bolster the legislative efforts, however....

This is the bottom of the slippery slope where we, as a profession have created too few barriers (ethical, educational and business opportunities being some of them) to minimize the number of those sliding to tbe bottom.

I was contemplating this morning the desire for a more educated surveyor. At the same time, I keep looking at my own career, and how many years were wasted in having to overcome the barriers created by ... well, a long story. The profession is not ready for a more educated surveyor.

Quick anecdote, I was privy to several fairly high profile surveyors being very impressed by a new hire who was able to do least squares adjustment in Excel. I was scratching my head...

Then I realized that none of those survey project managers and department heads had 4 year degrees. I didnt bring it up at the time, I let the new hire have his moment, but I kept thinking, none of them have a clue that to graduate from a 4 year program, especially before excel was invented, you had to do this long hand, just to pass a single class.

I know they were not just being nice to the new guy, we had lengthy conversations about this. Eventually I went more in depth over what is taught in a 4 year geodethic curriculum.

These are our gatekeepers.
Sadly, I am not unique in this experience. Even more sadly, many are afraid to talk about it lest they get on someone's bad side, and for people with children and families, this risk is too high.

[CBarrett]

David, do you care to share about some of your discussions regarding Mike's Site Plan white paper?

[David Kendall]

David, do you care to share about some of your discussions regarding Mike's Site Plan white paper?

I believe it remains to be a matter of educating every individual "planner" at every public agency as to the fine points of the relevant regulations. (planner in quotes because I note that there is no objective standard, license or certification for what qualifies a person to be considered minimally competent to be employed as a planner or community development professional)

On one hand they go down the checklist and require a site plan with all of the bells and whistles. On the other they don't really understand the significance of all of the items on the site plan checklist and some of them are often inapplicable.

While we all want to see a Record of Survey on every residential construction project the reality is that it is seldom practical or necessary to do this and it is not a reasonable expectation.

I feel that the solution is to have a competent and qualified LS on staff or consulting to provide permitting oversight at every city and county. Please let me know when the OC chapter can find a way to make that happen

[DWoolley]

I am quite reluctant to step into recent discussions on the forum.

CLSA is healthy, both academically/intellectually and certainly, financially. The usual staples i.e. CalSurveyor, web newsletter, free webinars, scholarships, are each of high quality and delivered on time. The Board of Directors meetings are constructive and each Director has a platform to represent the interest of the respective chapter. The committees, for the most part, are doing their assignments.

I offer examples, CLSA stopped a bill that would have deregulated land surveying through a rewrite of Business and Professions code 8726 by Operating Engineers. Let me be more clear, land surveyors almost lost the protected practice of construction staking. Senate Bill 865 had a reference to "geographic coordinates" in the requirements to map underground utilities - this technically is land surveying and the draft of law did not recognize the requirement created a hole in the practice act. SB865 was amended to state "(6) Nothing in this section shall be interpreted to preempt the Professional Land Surveyors’Act, as described in Chapter 15 (commencing with Section 8700) of Division 3 of the Business and Professions Code." That language was intended to protect the practice of land surveying. CLSA had help from BPELSG, ACEC and CELSA, but I am not sheepish in claiming CLSA had the lead role.

If anyone is looking for material for the overly cynical CLSA canards - anchor on the declining membership numbers. We lose members, mostly through attrition, annually. Last time I checked, death is undefeated. Also, the next generation does not lean towards collective meetings. I believe meetings are a relic of the past due to changes in society. I have read numerous articles on the isolation of Americans that have been exasperated by covid. This is not a CLSA exclusive problem, fraternal organizations have been collapsing for years. Their aversion to meetings does not mean they lack interest in the profession. For example, the OC CLSA Ten Minute surveyor has nearly 400 subscribers. Most of the programs are California centric.

I will say it again, CLSA is healthy and fine structurally. Sure, there is always more work that can be done and those interested in doing the work have a platform and the financial structure for a heavy lift.

One clarification, based on my recollection, Mike Pallamary did not nominate himself for a lifetime membership. I believe that nomination came from the Orange County Practice Based Chapter.

DWoolley

[CBarrett]

Looks like Dave has pointed out some of what OC CLSA is doing.

There are additional items regarding site plans, one example being the "my site pan" and several other board reports originating in Orange County.

Recently there is some talk regarding presentation materials which could be used at APWA, ASCE etc. There is some possibility that we can take advantage of Planners and Engineers having a continued education requirement. There is some chance our materials regarding site plans etc can be used for continued education hours.

We also have very active county surveyor who acts as a contract city surveyor or most of the OC cities. This is another avenue to disseminate information.

There is a half a dozen other ideas floating around that I am trying to summarize and tally up before presenting my own initial pass at SWOT.

Regarding meetings, there is no reason for all of the chapters to operate in their own silos, not speaking with one another. Yes, I understand there are different regional interests that each chapter needs to represent. We also have many common interests.
Fraternal organizations may be losing membership, however, those which have taken advantage of modern means of communication and collaboration are gaining strength. I am privy to several case studies in this, including my own workplace. Ability to connect across distances has made us stronger and more efficient. It did take conscious effort to do this and adjust, rather than carrying on the same way we always have. It is always little easier to do this in a workplace rather than volunteer run organizations, because the 'currency' which motivates people is different.

We no longer have the currency of having a beer after work and talking shop with buddies as a motivating factor. We need to find a different one.

[TTaylor]

Speaking of ethics .....

[TTaylor]

Speaking of ethics .....

One website of many.

https://simplicable.com/en/professional-ethics

[mpallamary]

Dave, you and Connie are correct. OC is doing a lot of wonderful things! I, for one, am grateful for your collective efforts! My comments were not intended to disparage the BOD. I have concerns with the apathy that permeates the association. It is real.

As an aside, I was unable to comment earlier. My family and I are in Arizona celebrating my granddaughter's 20th birthday.

Time flies fast; every day is a gift.

Happy holidays to all!

[LS_8750]

Negativity, like gravity, will hold you down.

I offer that I went into the land surveying profession from civil engineering while many of my peers were continuing into advanced specialties like the structural and geotechnical fields. Land surveying for me was/is that advanced specialty to compliment my credential as civil engineer. It had nothing to do with subdivision work.

With the death of measurement comes the death of licensure through years of practice in the field and no related four year degree. The unions and technology took care of that.

The Ma and Pa land surveyor shops will stick around like shoe repair specialists, the need is there for some.

How does the land surveyor of now and future fit into the world of land and resource usage?

That would be worthy topic.

Land surveyors will still come from backgrounds in the earth sciences and engineering as a sort of feather in their already established field of expertise caps. Not everybody wants to sit behind a desk peering into GIS models of the universe.