Last week MacKay Sposito sponsored a Business After School Engineering Week event through the Southwest Washington Workforce Development Council (SWWDC) for high school students who were generally interested in the field of engineering but also wanted to learn about our business, the types of work we do here, the jobs that work creates, and the education and/or experience a person needs to get one of those jobs.

We prepared four 20 minute sessions for the students to give them some better insight on civil engineering and landscape design, construction management, and land surveying.  All four sessions were very well done. I think the students got some very good information from each one and I believe the event was a huge success.

At this point, however, I want to focus on the land surveying sessions that Carla, Chris, Frank, and I pulled together because it was a great, if somewhat rare, opportunity to expose students to the field of land surveying. I think if you were to ask a typical high schooler what land surveying was, you may get a blank stare or maybe a wide range of guesses. This issue has been a challenge for the Land Surveyors’ Association of Washington (LSAW). In essence, how do we get students interested in the field of land surveying when they may not even know it exists? This event was one step toward solving that issue.

There is a lot of technology in the land surveying field that we showcased. Chris did a great presentation on 3D scanning, hydrographic surveying, and of course, the drone! Part of his presentation was indoors to show some video and graphical representations of the usefulness of these technologies before moving outdoors for some air time with the drone. We also showcased a full complement of survey equipment, including our boat. Frank and I gave an overview of the equipment, how and when it’s used, and answered questions from the students.

The students and their chaperones were very interested to hear how remote our work can be. Frank explained that he personally had surveyed in Alaska and Hawaii. It’s always a bonus to be the team with all the cool toys, so there was interest in hearing how we use our aluminum boat and inflatable Zodiac for hydrographic surveying, as well as our ATV’s in accessing remote areas. There were a few frowns when I mentioned this is one of those professions where you will use all those math classes you hate in school, specifically trigonometry; But we made it cool by showing them how those triangles relate to physical work.

The students who participated in the Business After School event all self-selected – meaning they wanted to learn more about our business. I think the exposure to all aspects of what we do here will help them better understand what it’s like to work in the areas of civil design, construction management, and land surveying. The hope is we spark an interest in one or more of them to pursue a career in one of these fields.