California Surveyors Forums

Does anyone have a current list of active California County Surveyors?

Here's one that I have cobbled together.

It would be worth having various Counties looking at and offering updates.

It is sorted by LS number.

Warren thank you! I really appreciate the information.

Quite interesting to see how many County Surveyors have a high LS number?
Makes me wonder how much experience they truly have for such a position.

Any number above 5435 seems high to me. :)

.......Makes me wonder how much experience they truly have for such a position.......

Well maybe the guys with the high numbers had 15 years running a company as the number two guy in the office. knows all kinds of stuff, knows how to delegate, familiar with the laws, but it took him forever to pass the test. I know a couple of guys like that.

There is more to being the county surveyor than knowing how to survey.

... not to mention all the folks with many years of professional work under their belts... from other states.

But yeah, a high number does make you wonder. It's funny how impossible it is to be impartial to the number of the LS.

Cody Hustead

Cody Hustead wrote:...It's funny how impossible it is to be impartial to the number of the LS. Cody Hustead

I know what you mean, I never thought of it until a year or two after I got my LS #, then all of a sudden there are # substantially bigger than mine.

I do have a question you, Cody H., how much more seasoned could you be then me?

Well, Robert. One way to answer that question is to tell you that my number is 8777 and let you judge by that.

I've known low number who made ignorant blunders frequently. And, I've known high numbers who are extremely articulate and absorb things very quickly and make very thoughtful observations. I've also known good surveyors who got sloppier are they grew older (and vise versa).

I guess it's just hard to judge.

Cody Hustead

Just as "you can't judge a book by it's cover", you can't judge a surveyor by his number.

Note that the license No. 8000 would have been issued about 10 years ago. My thinking is that someone that is licensed for 10 years has likely at a minimum had 15 years of experience. I think we all forget as much as we learn at that point. Looks like a more “well seasonedâ€￾ group than not.

It's interesting to note that it looks like there is only one “grandfatheredâ€￾ in civil engineer in the list.

Are there county surveyors that took forever to pass the minimum competency examination to become licensed? As someone stated earlier in a a previous post.

LICENSED PLS & PE:
Gary Antone 36077
David McGlasson 38482
Daniel Bastian 45489
Craig Tackabery 43042
Howard Dashiell 42001
Michael Lee 55795
Bill Marshall 36852
Greg Jones 61691
Dennis Hunter 36624
Rick Marshall 47574
Robert Pachinger 52667
Matt Machado 58093
Pat Minturn 45990



NOTES:
Gordon Maggitt Haggitt
David McGlasson out of state?
Aleks Jeremovic Jevremovic
Dave Rion Doug
Brian Peters ?
William Brunet civil only?
Doug Gault civil only?
Rick Hironymous ?
Richard Tippet Tippett civil only?
Bob Perreault civil only?
Kevin McAlister civil only?
John Linhart ?
James Barnts “grandfatheredâ€￾ 27681
Jeff Walters ?

Note that Bill Marshall isn't with Yolo County anymore, at least not in the CS role. Andregg is doing the job on contract now.

Which raises an interesting question: how many County Surveyors aren't county employees?

Jim Frame wrote:Any number above 5435 seems high to me. :)

I will have had mine for 25 years in a few days and it is 800 and change higher than yours.

Clearly any number 7552 or higher simply cannot be trusted.

It's just good science.

I am not a County Surveyor as listed for LA County. I am a Deputy. I was licensed as a PE in 1983. Did not attempt to pursue my PLS until 2007, passed it in 2008. Been in the subdivision map business on the public agency side since 1985 when I was sworn in as a Deputy County Engineer.

Warren Smith wrote:Here's one that I have cobbled together.

It would be worth having various Counties looking at and offering updates.

It is sorted by LS number.

Hello Warren

I had submitted an article for our state magazine a while ago (still under their review...a long story) that had some info on number of county surveyors. Based on looking at all 58 county websites in CA, I wrote that there were 33 counties that either had a county surveyor or listed the services of such. I took that to mean contracting out the map review.

To make sure my article is accurate as possible, I would like to know the actual number of county surveyors or number of counties that have a county surveyor department. Maybe your suggestion will get some responses from them.

Your list has 47 licensed land surveyors. The last dozen or so at the end of that list, as you suggested, were mostly civils, non-licensed, and one dual licensed. So they were all assistants of some kind to a county surveyor, I assume.

Wake up CLSA and California Surveyors the trend to economize government balance sheets is to eliminate the County and Deputy County Surveyor positions. The agencies are using the practice to deputize the licensed Senior Land Surveyor (at less salary) to sign on behalf of the absent County or Deputy Surveyor. This is a real trend just look at the recent ad in Sacramento County hiring a Senior Land Surveyor (with County Surveyor related responsibilities). Our profession is going backwards not forwards by allowing the elimination of the official County Surveyor title to save the CEO funds! What is the California Board of Engineers, Land Surveyors & Geologists position on this? Is there not a California Statue / Law that is being violated by not filling the position of County Surveyor? The attached list was last update 6/2010.

With all due respect Foster, 48 states have decided that it is best for the licensed practicing land surveyor to evaluate, review, sign and be held responsible for his/her own maps, plats, in and most cases, subdivisions, without input from a government agency surveyor.

At 48 to 2, maybe that means the majority are doing something right. I don't know for sure either way.

Of the four states that have a Record of Survey mapping requirement; Oregon, Washington, Alaska, CA, only two require the review by a county survey department.

An example of a state that has several counties with a County Surveyor is Colorado. The rest of the counties there do not. Several counties in the 1980's voted to abolish the department due to their over-review.

Those counties that do have such a department are taking care of county Public Works business for the most part, from what I can read.

The LS in Colorado, like in most states, "deposits"(their term for filing or recording) his/her plat map or official survey with the county auditor. That is it, no one is responsible for reviewing that map but the person who did the survey.

I wrote an article for the California Surveyor that may come out later this year that goes into more detail about what the other 49 states are doing. The theme of the article was that CA should not be an island, or be insulated from considering what others are doing. Those states need to learn from us and we need to learn from them.

Desert Turtoise, I have had the opportunity to work from most of the New England States down through New York, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. All of my experience was with the Court Houses and their respected Townships and Boroughs for submitting and receiving survey map information. The big differences between their systems and ours is that their Professional Engineering Boards experience and tough legislative measures. Laissez Faire measures in CA will not help the profession in surveying and only degrade the quality of work into the industry. I would love for you to come to my office for a day and view the kind of maps we receive on a daily basis and then I will ask you to evaluate the importance of the County Surveyors role in Land Surveying in CA.

FOSTER wrote:I would love for you to come to my office for a day and view the kind of maps we receive on a daily basis and then I will ask you to evaluate the importance of the County Surveyors role in Land Surveying in CA.

Ain't that the truth.

I run across what I consider to be deficient (and or incompetent) maps and corner records all the time.

If you go to the Santa Clara county corner records page that was posted on the forum not too long ago, it doesn't take too many clicks to find some horrible examples of lot surveys. Hold two monuments and record data and call six other found monuments of the same pedigree off. Unfortunately, you find it everywhere across the state.

So, why are all of you not submitting complaints on this surveys?

FOSTER wrote:Desert Turtoise, I have had the opportunity to work from most of the New England States down through New York, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. All of my experience was with the Court Houses and their respected Townships and Boroughs for submitting and receiving survey map information. The big differences between their systems and ours is that their Professional Engineering Boards experience and tough legislative measures. Laissez Faire measures in CA will not help the profession in surveying and only degrade the quality of work into the industry. I would love for you to come to my office for a day and view the kind of maps we receive on a daily basis and then I will ask you to evaluate the importance of the County Surveyors role in Land Surveying in CA.

Maybe you mean the rules and regs in effect in those states which their respective appointed board personnel enforce ?

Am trying to understand more of what you have learned on the east coast Foster. I always find only sparse info when I try to find out what is happening regarding quality of surveys in the eastern, southern and northern states regarding the surveying profession. What I do know is, the department of "County Surveyor" is a rarity outside of CA and Oregon. There are a few Midwest states, for example Indiana, which has a couple of county surveyor departments.

I had the privilege of interviewing a county surveyor in Colorado (he was also once a Co. Surveyor here in CA) for an article I was writing a while ago. He told me it was seldom that he would make comments or offer input on survey plats and official maps that were "deposited" at the auditors office. He said only when he felt that the surveyor was doing damage to the public, would he step in. If that surveyor did not respond to his concerns about establishment of a line, for example, he would then "regrettably do the very unpleasant task of reporting that surveyor to the state board".

So it appears that is one County surveyor who found the golden mean of both protecting the public when actually needed while not dictating to other surveyors how their procedure should be.