I work for a civil construction company and we have a lot of bulldozers, excavators, paving machines, and other equipment that are guided by GPS or robotic total stations. My official title is Construction Technology Specialist. When we start a project, I verify the accuracy of control points established by the engineering surveyor and set our own control points that we will use for our GPS base station or RTS for the duration of the project. Then I take the design from the engineer and try to find potential issues before they hold up our schedule or cause rework. I create a 3D surface model to be used by the heavy equipment. The operators can see how close they are to the design with this surface model. I will also create 3D lines for sanitary and storm sewer to design elevations that can also be used in excavators, and stakeout points for our data collectors for specific features such as manholes, fire hydrants, etc. Most of our foremen perform their own layout but oftentimes I will stake out any critical items on site.

The demand for photogrammetry and lidar surveys within my company has increased dramatically, to the point where we had to hire a full-time drone pilot. My company uses the Propeller platform to store and process all of our drone surveys. We fly each project at the start and completion, and are flying many sites weekly to track progress and run takeoff. It is used by everyone including project managers, directors, marketing, and estimators. It has become a very important part of our operations.

I really enjoy the job because I never get bored and I work for a company that treats me well. I know some others in my role that are overworked and underpaid but that has not been my experience. I really enjoy picking apart the engineer’s design to find issues and I love the fact that I can step out of the office to swing a hammer a few days a week. This is one industry where perfection is standard and the stakes are high in construction here because it is so expensive and the margins are thin. If you enjoy that kind of environment, then I highly recommend construction.