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Southern Chapter There was a career fair as part of the Symposium the day before
the surveying event and Trent Keenan, Nick Ariotti, and Heather
Keenan worked a booth on behalf of the association. If you have
Update open positions at your company, be sure to add them to the
NALS job board.

By: Frank Wittie, PLS We had a great picnic this year with over 40 people attending. We
returned to Centennial Hills Park in the northwest part of town. I
It has been great seeing would like to thank everyone that helped, but a special thanks to
everyone attending our Heather Keenan, Richard Bullard, Alejandro Orosco, Doug Wood,
events again. The Southern and Sean Corkill who got there early to setup and stayed late to
Chapter had a great breakdown. We had great food from John Mulls. This event could
February Membership not have been successful without a generous donation from
Meeting with guest Aerial Mapping Consultants.
speaker Duane Price
from the local BLM office. Survey Picnic Games Winners:
Duane spoke about BLM/ Pacing: Geron Burkhardt, Poggemeyer Design Group. Paced
GLO research. We did not 1,275’ - actual was 1,279.86’
have a March meeting Distance Estimation: Ed Thompson, VTN. He estimated 849.9’ -
due to the conference actual was 838.05’
here at the Luxor. On Hammer Throw: John Wooten, LVVWD with 49.1’
Saturday, April 23 we Wing Ding: Scott Turner, WMK Land Surveying
rd
held our annual picnic.
Our May membership Please do not forget that SNALS is offering a foursome in this
meeting will be a luncheon year’s golf tournament to the company or individual member
on Thursday, May 19 at who submits the most GPS on Bench Marks observations to the
th
th
Lawry’s The Prime Rib, our NGS by September 30 , 2022. If you or anyone on your staff
speakers will be presenting about NDOT’s Tropicana/I15 project. would like to pursue CST certification, please reach out to the
On Sunday, June 26 , SNALS will be getting together for some board and we will help arrange a test.
th
minor league baseball at the Las Vegas Ballpark. The Las Vegas
Aviators will be hosting the Albuquerque Isotopes. On July 9
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SNALS will be holding a railroad seminar by Duane Price. Duane
has personal ties to the railroad and is passionate about it. Keep
an eye out for more information on our upcoming events.
NALS collaborated with APLS, CLSA, UCLS, and WFPS to host
our first in person conference since COVID-19 hit. The Western
Regional Survey Conference was held at the Luxor here in Las
Vegas from March 30-April 2. I hope you all were in the room
to see Trent Keenan surprised when he was awarded the
Von Schmidt Award for his contributions to the profession in
both California and Nevada. Trent has his hands in on nearly
everything survey, so surprising him is not easy. He deservedly
got a standing ovation. Check out the video online. This year’s
theme “MAPPING THE PATH FOR THE NEXT GENERATION”
introduced a technician track of classes that were very well
received. Crissy, Nancy, and the rest of the conference committee
did an excellent job.

The SNALS board was asked to judge the Surveying Competition
of the Intermountain Southwest Symposium held at UNLV.
Trent Keenan, Sean Corkill, Gary Hancock, and I judged the
schools on four tasks, Pacing, Leveling, Building Stakeout,
and a topographic map/presentation of their map. Only two
schools competed in the surveying competition here, Utah State
University and Northern Arizona University. The winner was
Utah State University. Their team really impressed us when
both of their total station batteries died after turning their
first 90, they quickly regrouped and began to two-tape in their
building corners. These are all engineering students with only
one semester of surveying. Kudos to their surveying instructor,
his students were knowledgeable and prepared. Utah State now
moves on to the Society Wide Finals of the ASCE UESI Surveying
Competition at Louisiana Tech University from June 3rd-5th.

38 The Nevada Traverse Vol.49, No.2, 2022