2020 has definitely been a year of adaptation to challenges. Our ongoing public health issues have been preventing the administration of the state jurisdictional exam to prospective survey licensees in Florida. This examination has always been given in-person, with proctoring by state employees. Over the last several months, Liz Compton, the Executive Director of the Board of Professional Surveyors and Mappers, has been working on resolving the impasse. 

I’m happy to report that this resolution is nearly complete. By the end of this month, surveyors should be able to take the Florida specific exam from Prometric testing centers. Prometric is a nationally recognized administrator for academic and standardized tests. Prometric centers are scattered throughout the state, which means that no Florida resident should have to travel for more than a couple of hours at most to take the test. 

This approach is consistent with the method by which the NCEES tests are administered as well. This is a significant step forward for testing accessibility for Florida surveyors and would have been a great move even in an environment without pandemic concerns. In the current climate, this is the difference between the possibility and the impossibility of becoming newly licensed. 

This outcome would not have been possible without Liz Compton’s persistence and as a profession, we owe her our thanks.

Our gratitude is also due to another woman who has been working hard to improve access to the profession in Florida, Maria Barboza. Maria’s informational webinar last month (regarding the path to licensure for educated and experienced people from Latin locales who are planning to or have already legally emigrated to Florida) drew over 100 registrants! With the amount of interest that webinar drew, we will likely ask her to do another in the coming months. Thanks again to Maria (and to Greys Ocando, who helped facilitate).

By the end of October, we anticipate the rollout of a number of revised continuing education correspondence courses. Be watching your inboxes for further announcements on that topic soon.

At last week’s FSMS Board of Directors meeting, scholarships were awarded to three deserving applicants. With the cancellation of this year’s conference, contributions to both scholarship funds and to the PAC were significantly reduced. For this reason, whatever you can do to assist as chapters or as individuals to help is much appreciated. While we are not all gathering together in person currently, the needs for the work that these funds help us to accomplish do continue on.

Finally, whether you are voting by mail, in-person at an early voting site, or in-person on Election Day, please educate yourself about the candidates and issues on the ballot and vote accordingly. Although the Presidential race tends to draw most of the attention, the impacts of state and local races and state constitutional amendments are the ones we commonly feel most directly.

Until next month, stay safe out there!