March 2020

Whether or not March follows the proverbial trend of “in like a lion, out like a lamb”, the days between will be packed with surveying and mapping activity! National Surveyor’s Week is coming March 15-21. This is a great opportunity to contact your state and local leaders to solicit proclamations. The importance of these proclamations is not just the proclamations themselves, but also to raise awareness among our leaders that surveying and mapping is vital to our way of life. Where you can get opportunities to speak at a local chamber of commerce meeting, Rotary or Lions Club, or a local school, please do so. What we do as the ambassadors of our grand profession matters! Some excellent resources for outreach are available at https://beasurveyor.com/ .

As an example of a way you can engage the broader community, Brian Murphy (President of the North Central Florida Chapter) is currently working on putting together a surveying-focused career fair in Gainesville. If your company would like to participate, please email him!

Global Surveyors day is Saturday, March 21, and I am looking forward to getting to spend that day with the CIAPR Exterior Chapter at a picnic in Davie. They are a wonderful group of colleagues who share our love for the profession and they always have lively events.

March also brings us the primary elections for 2020. Although the national races are gaining the most attention, your vote can strongly affect local races and local policies which are what we all often feel the most day to day impact from. In the interest of making the places where we live and work better for all, please be informed about your local ballot and go vote early or on March 17. It’s a great way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day!

On a different front, the Board of Professional Surveyors and Mappers has had a few new key arrivals. Ia Hall has joined the Board, adding her unique skills and a fresh perspective to the regulatory group. We are also fortunate to have the new Executive Director for BPSM. Liz Compton brings a wealth of regulatory and communications experience to this role, and she has dived right in and taken the responsibilities of protecting the public interest relative to surveying and mapping very seriously.

Finally, the surveying community and all of us were made poorer with the untimely death of Abe Remchuk, PSM last month. Abe was a US Army veteran and a UF Geomatics grad. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time.

 Until next month, stay safe out there!