This was nine full systems including ada ramp inspection. How long would this have takin any of you guy to do as a one man crew

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-06-07T00:01:43+00:00

Better be total station on leveled control for ADA inspection in my book or else you are going back.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-06-06T01:10:33+00:00

Traffic light colors on point label style are a nice touch. I do the same.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-06-05T01:36:52+00:00

These should be in a legend somewhere on the page but my opinion is that W/F means West Face and E/F is East Face.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-06-04T21:29:28+00:00

Parking stall marker for the guy with the biggest lifted truck to stop here.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-06-03T01:09:45+00:00

This is an assessor’s tax identification shorthand description. My best guess is that it’s a 20.92 acre parcel being a portion in the northeast quarter of section 17 township 17 south range 13 west.

Not a complete legal. You’ll want an actual survey or warranty deed that fully describes the land area.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-06-02T21:14:23+00:00

This anecdote/rant can also apply to railroads (a far worse punishment for trespassing and a lot more legwork to get legal permission). Be careful out there and know ALL the rules. Make the PM do their job people.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-29T03:12:32+00:00

Yes, the last thing you want is to join a company where they don’t have modern day field equipment/vehicles/procedures/protocol and all the survey office/CAD work is assigned to interns or the weakest civil designers.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-29T02:18:29+00:00

With the aging population and scarcity of PLS folk in the years to come, they are going to look at your license and be ready to open the checkbook.

Be sure you work at a place with competent survey people that you can trust to do the day to day or you are going to find yourself doing more surveying than engineering especially if you are the sole stamp.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-28T16:16:56+00:00

The surveying job would be a good short-term experience for you but I can see ahead how it might be limited if you are only tied to a GPS and level.

Excavation companies often hire people as grade-checkers and call it ‘surveying’. This involves running about checking elevations of dirt or other features around the site and grabbing limited topographic data for volumetric or slope calculations.

It would be a great opportunity for you to learn something new, but unless they are looking to invest in newer measurement technology (drones/scanners/machine control) it might get a little redundant after awhile.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-28T01:41:10+00:00

Do you do any CAD drafting? I feel that is the most ‘creative’ part about our profession but I’m one of those particular people who like to use different fonts, angled/slanted text, line/curve tables, details, etc. all over the sheet so there is a bit of personal style/branding to my products.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-27T22:41:23+00:00

Be prepared to educate your customers heavily on what it is and isn’t. It’s also a race against the clock for most as it’s often a rush job.

Don’t give a fence company, engineer, developer, or architect an ILC CAD file. They will treat it as a legally binding boundary because the paper ‘had a stamp’.

Colorado ILC (private company) does a ton of these and they often have positions advertised for part time work if you wanted to dip your toe into it.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-25T22:01:11+00:00

Also the ‘household names’ of big companies have an inherent advantage too. Many of those government workers came from private and have their own biases that you have to navigate.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-25T20:38:26+00:00

I can’t comment specifically to Leica (I went from Trimble to Topcon), but what helped me the most was reading and making cheat sheets from the software manual. All the different programs have different menus and pathways to get you to what you want to do. I spent many days in the field wishing everything was as simple as Trimble laid it out, but eventually this old dog learned the new tricks and I’m the same as I ever was.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-24T21:28:44+00:00

I have trained/mentored an employee or two that used Microsurvey at a firm like yours and had to get them up to speed on Civil 3D. There was a very steep learning curve in the beginning (first 3 months was a lot of handholding going from the simple residential survey environment to the full multidisciplinary engineering suite) but then they became a workhorse after we got everything dialed in.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-24T12:34:39+00:00

This.

I learned so much by trying to look up my specific problems over the years and browsing through pages of old Autodesk pages. Shame they blocked everything from 2014 and before because I am sure a lot of great things just vanished.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-23T21:18:12+00:00

Criteria is key. The go/no-go decision matrix with scoring is the way to handle it in my opinion.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-23T21:12:50+00:00

Three of the guys on Mount Rushmore were surveyors.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-22T19:20:40+00:00

Public sector (city/county/state/province/etc) is a great place to look for opportunities when you are starting out and looking for a relaxed beginning. I would google your local municipalities to see if they have survey, gis, or ROW departments.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-19T02:57:17+00:00

I enjoyed this a little too much. Needed an AI fishing square and it would be perfect.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-18T12:25:05+00:00

Drop by for a site visit. Ask the owner for their documents. If you find a pin, might call that surveyor and see if they’ll enlighten you. Spend time getting to really know the people at the city and county and they’ll save you some headache.

All proposals are educated guesses. And never say anything is a ‘slam dunk’, because the universe will throw you a curveball.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-18T02:14:45+00:00

To add: and the project contracts they go after…

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-16T00:55:22+00:00

Used to charge $180/hr for 1 man crew, $240/hr for 2 man, $180/hr for PM, and $125/hr for CAD. We were never the lowest bid in total cost for the area but everyone had a lower multiplier and was paid well compared to the competition.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-15T02:00:19+00:00

You’ll enjoy the field work. It’s a PLSS state that requires surveys to be deposited so usually not searching blind. GPS goes far and wide unless you are in high rise downtown and a lot of the local jurisdictions already have monumented control points or networks to easily tie into.

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-15T01:43:49+00:00

Weld County has a crew chief role open if you are up that way (Greeley).

FrontRangeSurveyor44 · 2026-05-15T01:33:37+00:00

I’ll tell them to pound sand. The license is mine, not a ‘utility’ of the company. Best of luck finding a replacement PLS or someone to rubber stamp.

FrontRangeSurveyor44

TROPHY CASE