Road Trip!

The 2007 Surveyors Rendezvous at George Washington’s birthplace in Northern Neck, Virginia was a fabulous first stop that kicked off a three-week, 6,500-mile road trip of meetings and interviews (and seeds of future articles!) Adding to the spirit of the Rendezvous was my rustic cabin in the woods and loads of behind-the-scenes facts about the Father of our Nation, and a field trip to the new Washington exhibit at Mt. Vernon. Check out our photos by clicking on the flickr link at www.amerisurv.com.

Under pleasant blue skies I left the meeting and headed south for a visit with long-time acquaintances Lew Lapine and Matt Wellslager at the South Carolina Geodetic Survey. I have been hearing great things about the South Carolina RTN and the success they are having with GNSS verticals...

From there it was on to Florida, where I visited Traverse PC user Donald Todd in West Palm Beach. Don’s been working on a large GLO problem along the shore of Lake Okechobee for the past five years. According to Don, it all goes back to a 10-chain bust along the meander line...

Next I met with Marilyn Evers, executive secretary of the Florida Society of Mapping and Surveying (FSMS) in Tallahassee. Marilyn had read my editorial about the demise of math in surveying students and called to inform me that Florida has, for the past three years, been on top of the game. It will also make a great story about one state’s successful efforts to attract young people into the profession...

Next stop was Fort Worth, Texas for CGSIC For anyone who wants to know where GNSS is headed, it’s all at this meeting. Here's a teaser: think we could benefit from having ±124 GNSS satellites in the sky? Much of the meeting buzz surrounded the pending demise of NDGPS. While High Accuracy NDGPS provides the accuracy the precise crowd needs, NDGPS does not, but HA-NDGPS depends on NDGPS, so it’s a Catch-22...