CALL FOR PAPERS

FIG WORKING WEEK 2019

22-26 April 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam
at Vietnam National Convention Center
www.fig.net/fig2019

Few countries in the world have had such a rapid development as Vietnam during the last decades. Hanoi, the city where the FIG Working Week 2019 will be held, has grown extremely quickly during the last decades. This urban transition puts intense pressure on keeping the pace with rising demands for transport, infrastructure, social services, housing, environmental controls, data management and public amenities. Further to this development, Vietnam is considered as one of the countries most affected by climate changes. Hanoi is particularly at risk as it is situated in a low-lying area near the mouth of a major and unpredictable river.

Smart living is a major key to the fight against climate change. Spatial information, big data, surveying, BIM, land administration, real estate management and much more are essential factors in this development. The theme of the Working Week:

Geospatial information for a smarter life and environmental resilience

addresses these challenges that are crucial not only in Vietnam but for many all over the world.

The three conference days will focus on how to deal with these challenges by working towards a smarter life both through the development of smart sustainable cities and the development of rural areas.

Are you interested in presenting at FIG Working Week? Do you have an inspiring story to tell and interesting findings to present? Please check out the Call for Papers at www.fig.net/fig2019/call.htm.  

The deadlines are coming up soon:
Peer review abstracts AND full papers: 1 October 2018
Non peer review abstracts: 1 November 2018 l non peer review papers: 1 February 2019

For more information about the conference, please go to www.fig.net/fig2019

We look forward to receiving your abstract

The eighteenth PLSO Willamette Chapter Surveying Student Appreciation Night will take place on Monday, May 21, 2018 at OSU in the AG Science Room at La Sells Stewart Center from 6 to 9 PM.  Social period will start at 6 PM and dinner will start at 6:30.  

The speaker will be Leonard A. Rydell, PE, PLS and WRE.  He will be speaking on "What Do You See".  He is a fiftieth year graduate of OSU in Civil Engineering and he will be sharing his reflections on his life and his profession.

The event is free for surveying, geomatics, students and $35 Dollars for PLSO members and other attendees.  There will be a drawing for student door prizes at the end of the meeting.

The Caterer needs a head count so interested parties need to have their registration completed by Monday, May 14th.  

Register at http://cce.oregonstate.edu/2018-plso-student-appreciation-dinner-registration

By: Lee Spurgeon, Education & Outreach Chair

Last year there were more summer internships available than we had surveying students to fill those positions. There were about a dozen positions open that we were unable to fill. If you are thinking about hiring a summer intern, go to the PLSO Job & Internship Board and set up an ad earlier, rather than later. Once again, our goal is to get a surveying internship for every student that wants one.  Last year, we had one-hundred percent of the students who wanted an internship placed for the summer and we hope to repeat that success.

If you are a student and want an internship, please go to the online Resume Bank and place your ad there.  Remember that you are in very high demand, so you can be a little bit picky about finding the situation which will best fit your needs in terms of salary, but infinitely more important, the learning opportunities you can hope to pick up this summer which will bolster the relevance of your course work and provide a better chance to put what you do in school into a real world context.

This is truly a win-win program and I hope everyone can take advantage of what this program has to offer you.

By: Frank Lenik, NSPS

The theme for this year’s National Surveyors Week is communication. 

A few years ago, then NSPS vice-president Cavell placed National Surveyors Week under the charge of the publicity committee, understanding then that the purpose of NSW is to get the word out. That the land surveying profession is vital to a stable democracy where land ownership is the basis for most family wealth accumulation. He never directed how it should be done, only that it become a part of the bigger picture of how the National Society of Surveyors engage with our constituents and the public.

There are many ways to address surveyors in general and the public and we have continued in those tried and true veins. NSPS is again working with NOAA and the National Geodetic Survey on how to improve the geoid models for elevation so we can move towards better elevations from our instruments and migrate our data, both vertical and horizontal in 2022. This is a call for more GPS on Benchmark observations. We have done this for years but it is still an important educational tool for surveyors and the public. Many of you are already alerting the public and political entities in our regions through displays, news articles and proclamations. But there is more work to be done.

I often hear surveyors lament about how GIS has negatively affected our profession. This is a misunderstanding of the problem caused by a misreading of the symptoms. GIS was perhaps the second major event caused by the democratization of technology in our field. The hand-held calculator was probably the first but I expect this will cause many discussions (steel tape, edm, etc). The development of hand held computing devices coupled with GNSS antennas has placed the ability to locate oneself on the earth at everyone’s finger tips. Everyone now has an answer, but few know where it comes from or how it was determined.

This is an opportunity for the National Society of Professional Surveyors, and every state society to stake our claim as the experts in mapping points on the Earth. We can do that by opening our umbrella a little wider and reaching out to all those organizations who are using mapping tools in their work. This means departments of transportation, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the United States Geological Survey, the Department of the Interior, universities and technical schools, construction companies, geographic information systems purveyors, drone operators and others who may possess the tools but not the understanding of accuracy and precision. It should be an educational effort not a prescriptive effort, using our knowledge as doorway to attract new members and perhaps even new customers.

This is a call to arms that each one of you speak with, call, write or email someone in your circle and invite them to participate in National Surveyors Week. Remember that we are following in the footsteps of your forebears, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and so many others. Rise to the challenge and make a difference.