California Surveyors Forums

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See your PM's

Thanks Jeff!

Steve Martin:

In your opinion, do you think that 12 year old opinion did anything to change the course of history?

For the uninitiated, the Doug Melchior letter was written seeking assistance/guidance on contractors using GPS and/or machine control. In Southern California 99% of all mass grading is machine control now - it has been this way for nearly 20 years. In fact, contractors use RTK/RTN to construction stake most anything - except the high liability structures. If the owner provides surveying they tend not to do the work themselves - it saves them money. A large contractor recently performed approximately $10m in land surveying without a licensed surveyor until very end of the project.

Recently, at the surveyors' conference, someone asked a panel specifically "what threats to the profession do you see?" When one panel member said "machine control." I nearly fell out of my chair. I was surprised he didn't throw out Y2K next, Bill Clinton, the dot com Nasdaq bust or possibly, the advent of GPS. Actually, he was serious. Is anyone still fighting machine control in 2018? Not a rhetorical question.

DWoolley