January 18, 2023

Maddy Beaver As a lover of the outdoors and healthy challenges, I am an ambitious junior surveyor at Avenue Consultants. I enjoy hiking, camping, hot springs, and road trips to new places. In my free time at home, I love to play my guitar, sing old country songs, and watch movies. I grew up in […]

In 1954, the breakfast cereal market was a highly competitive one. Some cereal manufacturers hired tigers and bears to promote their products, while others lured customers by stuffing their boxes with premiums – whistles and marbles, buttons and soldiers, and plastic airplanes. Quaker Oats tried toy cannons that actually shot cereal across the kitchen, and rings with prisms that could really burn holes in Mom’s tablecloth, but they hadn’t gone over too well – Mom, after all, was the one who bought the stuff.

Ten men are deep in the Grand Canyon. Their expedition – to map the river corridor – marks the end of the era of exploration in the canyon.

It would be difficult. USGS Topographic Engineer Claude Birdseye faced enormous challenges to run an unbroken traverse and level line for 251 miles through the Marble and Grand Canyons. His expedition team included able boatmen, a geologist, hydrologist, second topographer, rodman and cook; ten men in all. Four 18-1/2’ by 4-1/2’ wooden boats “decked fore and aft and fitted with water-tight hatches and airtight compartments” conveyed the party and instruments consisting of “specially-constructed plane-table and telescopic alidades, a custom fourteen-foot long, folding stadia rod (which could be read from 2800 feet away, allowing for long shots through the canyons),” and “three additional alidades of varying styles (sight, Bumstead, and Gale), extra stadia rods, an aneroid barometer, tripod[s], four Brunton compasses, levels, tapes, field glasses, and field books.”

Construction of the Layton temple began summer of 2020. Diamond Land Surveying joined the project after the footings and the lower part of the sheer walls were already poured. Diamond was contracted to mark out over 400 precast concrete panels encapsulating the structure. The top left photo on the following page shows the view from the east tower of the temple at approximately 125 feet above the main floor.

Smartphones have completely changed how we live our lives, in many ways for the better. Their use, however, can also create hazardous situations. Smartphones are a huge distraction from simply walking down the street and texting to taking a driver’s eyes off the road for hundreds of feet of travel at a time. While it is a well-known fact that actively using a smartphone (or a regular cellphone) distracts you from other tasks at hand, recent research reports show negative effects from just having your smartphone in the area near you.

Much of America’s surveying practice descended from the English, but our early surveying equipment did not. The Old World used the delicate, expensive theodolite to divide its lands, sighting on points and measuring angles on a divided, graduated circle. American surveyors needed to establish boundaries over vast wildernesses that were difficult to traverse, and they needed to do it quickly and cheaply. Enter American innovation, technology and craftsmanship to improve a device used by mariners for hundreds of years, a form of which was being made in England: the magnetic compass. The result was the rugged, inexpensive standard American compass. One commentator said of the American compass: “Where accuracy can be sacrificed to speed and cheapness.”

“I am grateful for the recognition!”

Meridian Engineering’s QC/QA Manager Brad Mortensen, PE, PLS, received the 2021 UCLS Surveyor of the Year award. It was presented by Meridian’s Michael Nadeau on Friday, April 1, 2022, at the award ceremony during the Western Regional Survey Conference in Las Vegas, NV.

Alex Black, Park City Surveying Ben King, David Evans & Associates Brandon Mccloy, Ensign Brandon Oborn, Meridian Engineering Brock Christensen, Gilson Engineering Carlos Rivera, Utah County Land Surveyors Office Dallas Nicoll, Visionary Homes Daniel Butterfield, CIR Engineering David Hamilton, Anderson Wahlen & Associates Dorian Scoville, Salt Lake City Public Utilities Gary Pratt, Talisman Civil Consultants

As of July 20, 2022, Utah has 10,378 Professional Engineers, and 720 Professional Land Surveyors licensed in the state. Here are a few stats from DOPL for the professions from 2017 to 2022:

The Utah Council of Land Surveyors (UCLS) is the voice of the professional surveying community in Utah. The UCLS has a strong membership who are proud of our profession and love to be involved in many aspects of the surveying profession. One of these aspects is being the UCLS Conference Chair. Planning the annual conference can be challenging, but very rewarding as well. You will begin early by scheduling an event center and selecting/organizing your main presenter(s) and theme for the conference.

The Education Committee worked hard this summer, preparing for a few great events. We look forward to reaching many youths across the state.

First, thanks to all those who donated or made a purchase at this year’s scholarship auction in Las Vegas. We are still waiting on final numbers from the conference organizers, but preliminary numbers indicate we will have raised more than any conference prior.

The chapter with the highest number of points in a year is the “Chapter of the Year.” Each chapter can earn points by accomplishing the following achievements listed below:

On Aug. 6, 2022, the YSN had its first annual get-together. We had a really great time and had a good turnout. One of the highlights of the activity was our Historical Monument Hunt. We were challenged to find/show evidence of the oldest original monument we had found within the last two months. Almost everyone participated in the monument hunt, and we had some great finds. In this challenge, we had to provide a picture of the monument, as well as the original notes. Our winner was Taylor Christensen, who found a stone monument that dated back to July 1872.

As we all know, this year has been a fast-paced year for land surveying and many other industries we are associated with in general. Here in the Book Cliffs chapter, we are especially busy as the economy seems to be booming with the influx of the many folks on “Exodus” from city life in search of a more rural setting. This and the constant grind of the oil and gas industry keep those involved on their toes and working long hours.

Hello members! As I started to write this report, I decided to check out the last time I wrote a report for you. The summer of 2019 was the last Foresights the UCLS produced, and that was also my last report to you, pre-COVID-19. What an absolutely crazy couple of years it has been, my friends. I hope you all have been well and safe during the last few years. I’m excited that the UCLS Foresights is back, and I’m doubly excited we are on the back end of the pandemic.

The Golden Spike chapter listened to students present their drone projects for our first luncheon at the Davis Catalyst Center this year. We asked the students questions about how they came up with their determinations. We had Mike Nadeau attend and update us on the ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey Standards.

Matt Clark accepted the Chair position for the Historical Committee, and we are excited to have him bring his passion for the history of surveying to this committee. Please contact Matt if you are interested in helping with this committee.

This fall, NSPS met in Arlington, VA, for the Spring Meeting. This meeting was held at the same time as our regional conference. Spencer McCutcheon was in attendance as our young surveyor representative. There were 12 teams in attendance for the student competition, including UVU. Dan Perry traveled with the team. And while we missed

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is the age-old question that we have all asked ourselves at some point in our life. For me, I did not have a solid answer to this question, but there were several things I did know: I wanted to work in the technology field, and I wanted to be outdoors as much as possible. It is not very common to be able to work in technology and be in the great outdoors, so when I heard of land surveying, I knew I had found my perfect fit.