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Practical Management of Field Surveys

Prepared by Trent J. Keenan, PLS & Kristina Poulter An abstract of a Mentoring Monday’s
presentation from March 1, 2021

Managing field surveys is challenging. And the bigger the organization, the
more chaotic it can get. With multiple crews, dozens of jobs, and varying
equipment needs, it can be a lot to keep track of.

Landon Blake is the President and Senior Land Surveyor at Redefined
Horizons. He lives and works in the California Central Valley and is a
certified federal surveyor and UAV pilot.
He also has experience organizing field survey crews. In fact, at a previous
position, he created a role that was solely meant to streamline the field
survey process: the role of a Field Coordinator.

While not every organization requires a Field Coordinator, Landon
explained on a recent Mentoring Monday’s virtual meeting why it is critical
to consider at large organizations.

“It’s really hard to run a good surveying business,” Landon said. “When I say business, I mean organizations. It could be a public sector
organization. It’s just really hard to run an effective well-oiled machine as a land surveyor.”

When issues arise in the field survey process, it can usually be traced back to a communication breakdown between the field crew and
the office team.
After watching the same problems arise again and again, Landon became dedicated to trying to fix those recurring issues.

How organization size impacts field surveys

It might be easy to assume that a field survey is just a field survey, no
matter the company. But the truth is, field surveys are exponentially
harder to organize at larger organizations.
I tell people it’s 50x as hard to run a 20-person firm as it is a ten-
person firm,” Landon said. “You double the number of people that the
management headache doesn’t double – it triples or quadruples.”

Landon founded his own small surveying firm in 2020, but before that,
he worked at much larger operations.
At Redefined Horizons, things are relatively simple. Landon is able to
get his boots on the ground on every single job. This means that he no
longer needs to prepare field packages. As the senior land surveyor and
owner, he is personally integrated with all of the fieldwork.

“It becomes really important when that licensed land surveyor gets one or two or three layers removed from the actual fieldwork,”
Landon said. “As a licensed surveyor and responsible charge, you better have a system in place to manage your fieldwork. And you
should probably really have some written guidelines that your crews follow.”

Why written guidelines are important

By written guidelines, Landon does not mean a general checklist. He suggests a specific written
handoff on every single field survey assignment.

Why is this important? First off, it will help to improve the quality of your work and streamline your
day-to-day workflow.
Secondly, it will give you written proof if you are ever called to the board or by an attorney to prove
that your responsibility on a project was fulfilled.

28 The Nevada Traverse Vol.48, No.2, 2021