Pub. 12 2017 Issue 1

www.ucls.org 4 Issue 1 2017 / UCLS Foresights O ver the years as I, like many of you, have watched sur- veying continue to shrink and in some cases even become marginalized as a profession I am deeply saddened and concerned. Title companies continue to push us into making decisions about legal description or in some cases the boundary opinions we have rendered. Construction companies continue to take over more and more surveying functions, etc. Most, if not all these issues have their roots in the introduction of new technology. Unfortunately, surveyors are historically, very slow technology adopters compared to other professions. According to my own master’s degree, research on this topic it takes, on average, about fifteen years to fully adopt a new technology into the surveying profession. Just take a minute to reflect on your own career andanalyzehow long it took you from the time you first started reading about a new technology in trade magazines to when you implemented the Total Station, GPS, Robotic Total Station or 3D Laser Scan - ning technology intoyour everydayworkflow - yep about fifteen years. Of course, wemust be concerned with accurate measurements, and there are legitimate and valid reasons to be slow adopters. But at the rate of new technologies being introduced just into the surveying and related professions and then comparing that rate to our average adoption rate- we are falling behind approximately five years for every year that passes. Look at Geographic Information Systems (GIS). We have been almost entirely pushed out of that discipline. Almost ALL maps today are NOT made by surveyors as they once were, but instead are beingmade byGIS specialists possessing non-surveying degrees. We see theproblems thismarginalizationhas caused our profession. But, essentially, it’s already too late to get mapmaking back into land surveying, that ship has sailed. The fact is; we are falling behind technologically and professionally on almost every important aspect with- in the surveyor’s purview. I teach a surveying and engineering business management course at UVU in the Geomatics Program where we initial - ly discuss a book called “Surfing the Edge of Chaos” by Richard Pascale, Mark Milleman, and Linda Gioja. They address the concept that we must al- ways be changing (rate and intensity varying) otherwise, we simply become obsolete and irrelevant. This obsoles- cence is real and it is accelerating in many disciplines but especially in sur- veying. There are actions we can take as a profession that will at least reduce this rate if not eliminate it entirely. It is in this backdrop that I have been watching the UCLS organization over the past ten years since I have been a member serving on the Education and History committees and now as your Chair. While I think the UCLS organiza - tion is terrific, has great potential, and currently represents a large majority of the professional surveyors in the State of Utah, I have on the other hand re- ceived a lot of input from many reliable and concerned members which leave me asking many questions all of which relate to RELEVANCE. If we don’t stop now and address this critical issue, we may end up with two professional orga- nizations, like they now have in Arizona. I personally really, really don’t want that to happen. One of the first steps to ensuring RELEVANCE is honest self-evaluation. This is essentially what I proposed to the UCLS Board of Directors the last day of our annual conference in Feb- ruary. Shown herein is a copy of the document 2030 Initiative: “A Foot in the Past, an Eye to the Future” (by the way, this was a phrase I took from Marc Cheves, editor and owner of American Surveyor magazine) that no doubt each of you have seen because it was the topic of every UCLS Chapter meeting in March and April. So, I want us to ask the hard ques- tions. What is the purpose of the UCLS organization? Are we really meeting the needs of our members? What are those needs? What should the UCLS be doing for its members? Why aren’t more members participating in com - mittees or in leadership positions? (Everyone is busy, yet we all love this profession!) If we are doing well in meeting needs- then how well are we doing? How do we go about accom - plishing our “mission” or the purpose of our existence, if we are not perfectly clear about relevant purposes? Know - ing the answers to these and many other questions will also help the Board develop decision-making criteria, which will have a direct impact on the effec - tiveness of this organization. We really do want your involve- ment in this Strategic Planning process we are undertaking in 2017. While each board member you have voted for is trying their best to represent your interest, we are better able to do so when we hear what you have to say. I hope you took the opportunity to en- gage in the discussion process in your chapter meeting. However, if you still have more to say or have some addi- tional ideas about; what UCLS should be about, and/or what we should be doing for you as a member, then please email or talk to any member of the board. Keep in mind we will also be conducting several polls/questionaries’ throughout 2017 so please continue to give us your feedback. WE ARE LISTENING! t BY DANIAL L. PERRY, MBA, PLS 2017 UCLS CHAIR Thoughts/Notes from the Chair