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Personal Ethics – We give him a nickname and talk to each other privately
about his shoddy work, but that’s about it, and that doesn’t
Turn ‘Em or Not? accomplish much. In 2016 I floated the idea of establishing
a NALS Professional Practice Committee to look into these
types of things and felt a shocking amount of backlash. The
By: Carl R. C.de Baca, PLS members spoke up at chapter meetings and claimed that I
was trying to organize a lynch mob, while the Board thought I
was trying to usurp their authority. Neither was true – not by
a long shot. I simply thought that a committee of peers might
be able to review the facts and if warranted, try to persuade a
non-surveyor to comply with the law without having him face
a formal complaint. If the offender changes his ways without
facing a disciplinary action, everybody wins - the pubic, the
surveyor in question, the profession as a whole, and the Board.

Oh well, I’m not getting on that soapbox again. Instead, I
am just asking each of you, does the reluctance to report an
apparent violation mean that the prevailing sentiment in our
profession is that another surveyor’s non-compliance and
the concomitant injury to the public is none of our business?
If Brand X Surveys is making a mockery of the law and local
Okay, let’s roll up our sleeves, unbutton our collars, and have practices, do we just shrug and go on about our work? What
an unpleasant discussion. Let’s say you have knowledge of are the ethics of that attitude?
one of your peers violating one of the statutes governing
Surveying. The most obvious violations are setting (or not If I understand this sentiment correctly, filing a complaint is
setting monuments) and failure to file a record of survey. What too extreme, and creating a Professional Practices Committee
do you typically do? What are you obliged to do, either legally is somehow worse. Okay, how about this – call “that guy” and
or ethically? What does it say about your notion of leadership ask him when you might expect to see his missing Record of
in your profession if you stand by and let another person cheat? Survey. Take a leadership role, offer some advice and point
him to NRS 625.340 and note the common English meaning of
Do you say something, i.e. file a complaint with the Board, “shall” is not the least bit ambiguous. If this advice is accepted,
or turn away, content in the knowledge that you set the bar great. If not, the Board is waiting to take your call. You owe it
higher for yourself and your staff? Ignoring an offender, to the to the profession and to the public to support the honest
especially a serial offender, feels to me a bit like aiding and and competent practice of Land Surveying.
abetting. Although that is term reserved for criminal charges
and required actual complicity in the violation, rather than mere
knowledge of it, the term still seems apt.

No matter where you practice, there is always going to be “that
guy”. You know who I am talking about - the person who never
sets their monuments, or sets monuments but never files a
record of survey, or files a survey that throws all the other
surveys in the area out of whack with its unusual take on what
constitutes a section corner. For reasons that escape me, “that
guy” seems to always have a long and robust career, never runs
afoul of the Board and never shows any interest in improving
the quality of his work. Do we collectively make allowances
for “that guy”? Do we feel sorry for him somehow, or enjoy his
company at the bar so much that we can’t bring ourselves to
intercede? How did this surveyor’s questionable behavior come
about? Who taught him in the first place? Who was his mentor
- anyone?

From my time as a practicing Nevada LS and especially in
my years as an officer in NALS, I have seen first-hand the
reluctance to report a peer to the Board for apparent violations.
24 The Nevada Traverse Vol.49, No.3, 2022