Pub. 12 2017 Issue 1

www.ucls.org 16 Issue 1 2017 / UCLS Foresights Utah Council of Land Surveyors 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award THOMAS W. HARVEY BY JAMES COUTS M r. Harvey has spent over 60 years in the surveying profession, which is double the time requirement for the Lifetime achievement award. During that time, Mr. Harvey has done as much as anyone for the profession in the state of Utah, including serving as the UCLS Salt Lake Chapter President, helping create the Foresights newsletter, and serving as a founding member of the Western Feder- ation of Professional Surveyors. At 80 years old, only a handful of living surveyors have been licensed lon- ger in the state of Utah than Mr. Harvey. These include previous UCLS lifetime achievement award winners Dean Hill and Max Elliot. While at Bush and Gudgell, his sur- vey crews were the “proving ground” for so many young surveyors. A significant number of Utah Surveyors can trace their “mentor lineage” back to Tom Harvey. Today, a fourth generation of surveyors is still being affected by Mr. Harvey, his colleagues, pupils, and protégés, and their colleagues, pupils and protégés. In addition to his individual service to the surveying community, and more specifically the UCLS, he has supported and encouraged his employees to partic- ipate in the UCLS as well. Mr. Harvey’s age has diminished his own participation in the UCLS and the greater surveying community in recent years, but his employees have served on nearly every UCLS committee, as committee chairs, and as chapter presi- dents. The lasting effects of his lifetime of surveying will be felt for many years through his leadership and mentoring of young surveyors throughout his career. In order to keep this articles a se- cret, Mr. Harvey was not consulted or interviewed, and the dates used have been compiled from the mem- ories of many long-time associates, peers and friends. General Experience and Qualifications Mr. Thomas W. Harvey is currently the executive Vice President of Electrical Consultants, Inc. He oversees the Sur- veying and Land Services Departments activities. He has more than 60 years of experience in the surveying industry. He has served as the UCLS Salt Lake Chapter President, during which time he helped create the Foresights News- letter. Mr. Harvey was also a founding member of the Western Federation of Surveyors. He is currently licensed in five states, including Utah, and contin- ues to work regularly on survey projects providing expertise on many levels, but especially on cost proposals. Mr. Harvey was born in 1937 and began working for Bush and Gudgell in 1953 when he was 16. Working as a rear-chainman in those times was difficult with crews of three and four or more members still being com- monplace. It was hard work, but Tom excelled at surveying and was running his own crew by the late 1950s and early 1960s. Tom moved into the office in the late 1960s and began to oversee the duties of multiple crews. In 1973, Mr. Harvey received his first of many surveying licenses. There are now fewer than 20 other surveyors with current licenses in the State of Utah who have had a license as long as Mr. Har- vey has had. Tom later became licensed in Nevada, Alaska, Wyoming, and Idaho. He maintains each of those licenses to this day. In the mid-1970s, Mr. Harvey began to market heavily to Utah Power and Light and Mountain States Fuel. He was one of the surveyors to receive regular work from these utilities, and he was awarded what would now be called an On-Call Contract or Master Services Agreement. With the amount of work that Mr. Harvey brought into Bush and Gudgell, they started an Energy Division. Mr. Harvey managed the Bush and Gud- gell Energy Division for almost 15 years. His ability to market kept the Energy Department busy for many years. Even- tually it grew to where Mr. Harvey was managing 19 crews. An anecdote I have heard many times at UCLS conventions is that in the 1980s you couldn’t find a survey crew in Utah that didn’t have at least one person on it who had gotten their start at Bush and Gudgell. For a time, they were the “proving ground” for surveyors, and Tom Harvey played a major role in mentoring these surveyors. In 1988, Tom Harvey left Bush and Gudgell and purchased Intermountain Aerial with an old friend. During his time at Intermountain Aerial, he continued working with the telecommunications side of surveying and worked on con- tracts with MCI that took his survey crews to all 50 states. Intermountain Ae- rial continued to work on power delivery projects as well, and he mentored an entirely new group of surveyors. In 1996, ECI brought Mr. Harvey in to start the survey department at their