In January 1977, I was too broke to go back to college. Pursuing my chemistry degree was off the table until further notice, so I went down to the Texas Employment Agency in Austin, Texas looking for a job. And in the dead of winter, the options were slim. It only took 15 minutes to go through the entire list of opportunities. I jotted down the only thing that sounded feasible. It was an engineering company hiring for surveying.
Back then, I didn’t know much about surveying—just bits and pieces from my forestry buddies in college. But I drove to the company, interviewed and I was hired to survey crew working on a federal contract mapping rivers, streams and creeks in two counties for the first-generation Flood Insurance Rate Maps. I had no idea that that day would start my 48-year career in land surveying.
College may have been my goal, but I didn’t need three-inch-thick textbooks and tenured professors to get an education. I learned surveying through the eyes of my mentors while sitting in the back seat of a Suburban. I learned that surveying was largely about law and math, two subjects I was innately good at. But even more so, it incorporated history, geography, art, science and, most notably, surviving the weather.
I learned that I could climb a ladder of knowledge and attain a professional license, but I had to buckle up because it would be a long road of patience and diligence in between.
I learned to ask questions and to seek answers.
I learned not to limit myself.
I learned how to think and to not confuse thinking with knowing.
I learned to believe I could do anything if I just applied myself and stay focused.
But mostly, I discovered how to learn something outside of a book, something self-taught, something that connected me to one of the world’s oldest professions that nobody really understands. I took on every challenge, knowing that each step was an inch forward. And for the first time, I learned about who I was through what I was doing.
After 10 years, I got the chance to sit for my boards—a grueling two-day examination that some consider tougher than the bar. I walked in a student, and I walked out a surveyor, having passed all four exams on my first attempt with an average score of 94. Words do not yet exist to describe the feeling of when I got that letter. It was the validation of all the years spent reading law books and working math problems. I was no longer just a student of surveying. I was registered.
That next day was the first day of the rest of my life. But earning a title was just the beginning. For the next 20 years, I never stopped learning. Because knowledge is power and the key to wisdom and the freedom of choices. Learning is a part of life and at the core of everything you ever do. You can go to college and get the best degree in the world, but that first day, when you show up to that job, you start right back over at ground zero. It’s experience that shapes you, and determination that sets you apart. You may think a lot of things, but what you think doesn’t matter unless it motivates you to learn and distinguish your thoughts from knowledge.
I knew that as I advanced in my career as a registered professional land surveyor I still had much to uncover. Because understanding the concepts of surveying is one thing, but successfully applying that knowledge requires organization and a depth of leadership and management skills.
Over time, I earned titles such as Technical Office Manager, Division Manager, all the way up to Vice President. But what’s in a title really? The real power is in knowing how to lead people to a collective result that far exceeds the abilities of any one individual. It is learning how to motivate, mentor and inspire people—to teach them what they do not know and to clone ourselves. True success is not just about excelling personally, but about passing our knowledge on to others, elevating them to a higher degree of understanding and giving them the confidence and self-esteem to go out and do the work and to do it well.
It's important to understand and to teach others that some things in life are worth committing to. It’s okay to start something new at 35 or 40. And to accomplish a goal at 35 or 40 after 10 or 15 years of effort doesn’t put you behind; it means you’re making progress and taking control of your life. Sometimes we just don’t know how things will go. Sometimes life just gets in the way. But always move forward. Keep your eyes and focus on something ahead, even if it means dangling it for yourself.
Now, at the end of my career, I can look back at 48 wonderful years. Years filled with seeing countless places, traveling through time in history-rich lots, surveying thousands of projects and the privilege of getting to clone myself through mentoring and guiding seven individuals towards their own professional registration. Watching them grow and succeed has been one of the most rewarding parts of my career.
I am proud to be leaving a forest from the seeds I have planted.
