COPYRIGHT
© 1994 BUSINESS NEWS PUBLISHING CO., TROY, MICHIGAN. REPRINTED
WITH PERMISSION.
P.O.B. Magazine
October-November 1994, Volume 20, Number 1
by Robin J. Williams
It is no secret that the surveying profession is facing a shortage
of qualified personnel. More than a few college and university
surveying programs--one avenue into surveying--are struggling
just to maintain minimum class sizes, let alone grow. If the
surveying profession is to survive it needs to expand its pool
of recruits. One largely untapped potential source is women.
Consider the fact that an increasing number of women are entering
the work force in general, including traditionally male-dominated
professions. According to Workforce 2000--Work and Workers for
the 21st Century, by the year 2000, approximately 66% of people
entering the work force will be women. Such a change, which has
already begun in the surveying profession, needs to be continued
and supported.
We interviewed nine women, ranging in age from 28 to 65, who
are currently working in the surveying profession in various
capacities. From these conversations we have gathered their perspectives
and experiences of their surveying careers. Their insights into
the profession follow.
Picture Caption
In addition to her work as manager of the Geographic Search &
Service Department of Charles Jones, Inc., Trenton, New Jersey,
where she conducts map-based research, Wendy Lathrop, PLS, is
also vice president of the National Society of Professional Surveyors.
Entering the Profession
Becoming a part of the surveying profession has often occurred
more by chance than by intent. In the October-November 1985 issue
of P.O.B. (Vol. 11, No. l), the "Surveyors Speak-Out"
question asked readers if they got into surveying by design or
by accident. A majority, 64%, entered the profession by accident.
The same trend is evident among the women we interviewed. Loyce
Smith, PLS, first learned about surveying while working for the
city of Boise (Idaho) Public Works Department. (She is now a
survey data abstracter with Infotec Development Inc., an engineering
firm in Boise; she took an early retirement from the city of
Boise after 24 years of service.) Because of personnel shortages,
she was asked to either help with a construction inspection project
or work as a chainperson on a survey crew (she chose the survey
crew). "You don't send out a bird watcher with a telescope
and expect them to ever want to come back into the office,"
she says. "I started out in the sewer engineering section
as a drafter. Once I got out into the field I worked my way up
to crew chief. Then in 1983 when I broke my leg, I was back working
in the office doing design and drafting and getting computer
experience."
Picture Caption
Wendy J. Woodbury Straight, LS, (right) owner and operator of
Woodbury Surveying, Dunkirk, New York, pauses during the morning
project discussion with (from left to right) John Barthelmes,
computer science intern, Glenn Anderson, systems manager, and
Beverly Evans, computer science intern. Woodbury Straight believes
strongly in employing student interns in her surveying company.
Lynne R. Merritt, a survey assistant
at Environmental Science & Engineering, Inc., Peoria, Illinois,
started out at the company as a receptionist. "I started
talking to a man in the surveying department and he pretty much
told me what surveying was about. That was the first I had heard
of surveying. My former husband was a heavy equipment operator,
so I had been around it, but I had never talked to anyone about
it. This man in the surveying department said I could be good
at it and enjoy it because he thought I had a good ability to
get along well with others and he liked my enthusiasm. I had
wanted to do something else other than what I was doing--something
that would make a difference. So I transferred over to that department
and got into it and loved it." Merritt also works for a
surveyor a couple nights a week and on Saturdays for extra money.
"My company knows about it and my supervisor said it would
be good training for me," she explains. In addition to the
two jobs, she is raising her seven-year-old son, "who still
thinks mommy builds every road." She has an arrangement
with her parents to take care of him while she works two jobs.
This fall Merritt will be taking night classes for eventual licensure,
and although there are quicker ways to obtain a license, "with
working 40-plus hours a week, I want to spend as much time with
my son as I can."
Others learn about surveying through family members who are in
the profession. Three of the women we talked to helped their
fathers while growing up. "I worked with my dad when I was
a little kid. I did field and office work (I wasn't very good
at the field work) for him after school, on weekends, and during
the summer," recalls Wendy J. Woodbury Straight, LS, owner
and operator of Woodbury Surveying, Dunkirk, New York. "I
liked the work at the time, but I never considered it a career
opportunity for a woman. In the '50s and '60s when I grew up
it wasn't an option. I always thought I was supposed to be a
teacher like my mom, and I taught for awhile until I realized
that I liked surveying." When she made her decision to pursue
a surveying career, she began working full time in her father's
company. In 1983 she became the owner. "My dad had talked
to me about taking over because he wanted to retire -- my mom
was already retired and they wanted to travel."
Picture Caption
Cathy Bishop Costarides, PLS, began her surveying career at age
13 when she worked out in the field for her father's surveying
company. She has followed in her father's footsteps by starting
her own company - C & C Land Surveyors, Inc., of Acworth,
Georgia.
When Cathy Bishop Costarides, PLS,
president of C & C Land Surveyors, Inc., Acworth, Georgia,
began helping her father out in the field at age 13, "I
had no idea of what I was doing." After high school she
started working for him full time, "mostly in the office."
When he moved the office out of Acworth three years later, she
stayed behind. "I went to work for various other surveyors.
Six years later I had a bachelor's degree in business administration
and marketing. I wasn't sure I wanted to get into land surveying,
but as soon as I got out of it I went right back in--it gets
into your blood. So I went to Southern College of Technology
[Marietta, Georgia] for two years to get my bachelor's degree
in civil engineering, then I got my LSIT, then my RLS, then I
met my husband, who is also a licensed surveyor, and in 1989
I opened my business." Although she loves her work, it is
not without its difficulties: "A lot goes on here and I
can't get away--I feel trapped sometimes and I can't really take
a long, extended vacation. With my husband and I working together,
he really can't get away either. We're still trying to work this
out."
Interestingly, only one of the women interviewed has a surveying-related
degree, although almost all of the women have taken college courses
in surveying, are licensed, and have degrees in other fields.
Instead of taking the formal four-year-degree route, these women
have followed the course of many other surveyors to gain knowledge:
on-the-job training, seminars, conferences, work-shops, continuing
education classes, etc. Even their other degrees are valuable.
"I can honestly say that I use my bachelor's degree in business
administration and marketing as much as I do my surveying training.
My business degree was not a waste--I would definitely recommend
that everybody take at least one business course," says
Bishop Costarides.
As they entered the profession, these women also became active
in surveying-related organizations, often holding leadership
positions at local, state, and national levels. Joanne Darcy
Crum, LS, sole proprietor and principal of Joanne Darcy Crum,
LS, a surveying firm in Cobleskill, New York, was president of
the Colonial States Board for Land Surveyor Registration and
is vice chairperson of the New York State Board for Engineering
and Land Surveying. Wendy Lathrop, PLS, manager of the Geographic
Search & Service Department of Charles Jones, Inc., a firm
in Trenton, New Jersey, that conducts various searches for other
companies, is vice president of the National Society of Professional
Surveyors (NSPS) and past president of the New Jersey Society
of Professional Land Surveyors. Linda Miller, PLS, sole proprietor
of Miller Land Surveying Company, Bend, Oregon, was president
of the Central Oregon Chapter of the Professional Land Surveyors
of Oregon. Loyce Smith was president of the Idaho Association
of Land Surveyors and an NSPS governor for Idaho. Margarita (Maggie)
Weidener, PLS, owner and president of Weidener Surveying and
Mapping, P.A., Miami, Florida, is chairperson of the Florida
State Board of Professional Land Surveyors and was vice president
of NSPS. Woodbury Straight chaired the Membership Development
Committee for the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping
(ACSM) and headed its equal opportunity task force. "I think
if somebody is in the field or familiar with the field, probably
one of the most important things he or she can do is get involved
in surveying associations. That really has had a major, major
impact on my life and in my business," comments Darcy Crum.
Picture Caption
Linda Miller, PLS, sole proprietor of Miller Land Surveying Company,
Bend, Oregon, worked with her father, also a surveyor, in 1986
on a mapping project 30 miles west of Las Vegas, Nevada. Although
she has owned her own surveying company since 1979, she still
enjoys working with her father, whom she credits with teaching
her a lot about the profession.
These women are also active in such
associations as the National Association of Women in Construction
(NAWIC), the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), the Forum for
Women in Surveying (a standing committee of NSPS), and the National
Association of Women Business Owners. Weidener belongs to this
last organization: "It is important because I get to share
with other women business owners the problems and situations
that we might have in common with each other. I find it very,
very helpful." And although Woodbury Straight belongs to
NAWIC, SWE, and the Forum, she looks forward to the day when
such associations will no longer be necessary (when the male-to-female
ratio is 50-50). "[The associations] need to be here for
solidarity. At this point in time they are helpful in networking,"
she says. It was, in part, because of this need that the Forum
for Women in Surveying was formed in 1983 by Woodbury Straight,
Lathrop, and Mary C. Feindt, PS, president of Charlevoix Abstract
& Engineering Co., Charlevoix, Michigan.
Once in the Profession
We asked the nine women to rate their
level of job satisfaction, with ten being the highest--the average
was 9.1. "I am doing something different all the time--the
degree of variety is what I like, from construction staking to
mapping flood plains to building layouts to surveying hazardous
waste sites to drawing up plans," comments Merritt. Lathrop
concurs: "There's a lot of flexibility in my work. I enjoy
the responsibility and the type of work that I do." Her
department does a lot of map-based research, including reading
flood insurance rate maps, performing offsite wetlands investigations,
and researching historical tidewater regions in New Jersey. "As
manager of the department and as a surveyor I field the technical
questions and train the people here as to proper ways in which
to read maps, scaling, and making different kinds of judgments
on them. I'm also building a GIS [geographic information system]
to make our resources more accessible. There's a lot of opportunity
for growth--I've learned a lot while I've been here, partly through
their support in allowing me to take other courses. As long as
I'm growing, I'm happy."
Picture Caption
Joanne Darcy Crum, LS, sole proprietor and principal of Joanne
Darcy Crum, LS, Cobleskill, New York, who opened her business
in 1987, likes the fact that surveying is such a varied profession.
Another explanation for this high level
of job satisfaction is that these women have achieved significant
goals in their surveying careers, including, for six of them,
starting their own surveying businesses.|
"Having my own business is the best thing that has ever
happened to me," says Weidener. "You end up working
much harder, but it is more rewarding because you are in control.
I strongly encourage someone who has the desire to go into their
own surveying business." Reasons for going out on one's
own vary. Although Weidener held a very high place at the multidisciplinary
engineering company she worked for and was even a stockholder,
"I pretty much felt that I had gone as far as I was going
to go. I wasn't growing anymore and I didn't feel motivated or
challenged." Out on her own, Weidener faced difficult challenges,
especially in the beginning: "I'll be the first one to admit
that the first few years were horrendous, especially when you
start a business from scratch with no clients--with no prospective
clients for that matter. I used to describe those years as blood,
sweat, and tears because it seemed like every single contract
I got was because I was a pest and I insisted so much that they
finally gave me small jobs so I would go away. Although it was
very, very difficult, and I would not want to do it over again,
I'm very happy that we're now a well-established firm in Florida
and we have a good reputation and people know who we are."
For some of the women, starting their own surveying business
happened more by chance than by design. As Darcy Crum explains,
"After I had my license for two years, I felt I couldn't
make any more progress at the company I was working for. I gave
serious consideration to looking for another job or going to
law school. I have a brother in business for himself in New Jersey
and he said, 'Why don't you just stop whining and open your own
business?' And at that point I said, 'Oh, OK, I can do that.'
And that's what I did." Although she did not plan to go
out on her own at this point in her life, the timing worked out
well. "When I started my business my daughter was in kindergarten
and for me to get a job would have meant traveling to Albany
[New York], a 40-mile trip during a 40-hour workweek, and I didn't
want to be an hour away. But there was an opportunity to take
advantage of. I live in the largest village in our county and
there wasn't a surveyor here in town. I felt I should start a
business here rather than sit around and watch someone else move
in."
Flo Smith, owner of Flo Smith, CCA (certified construction associate,
a degree similar to a certified public accountant), a survey
instrument consulting firm in Peoria, Illinois, was also encouraged
by someone else's suggestion to start her own firm. For 40 years
she worked for a blueprint company that also handled surveying
supplies. "I did everything while I was there. I was hired
as a bookkeeper, but I became a buyer, sales trainer, etc."
She ended up marrying the president, but when he died the business
was divided up and she was literally out of a job. "I got
a call from a customer who said he had found out I was no longer
there. And he said, 'What are you going to do? Are you going
to sit there and feel sorry for yourself? Are you going to work
in a department store and lose all of your technical knowledge,
or are you going to take my order?' And that's what I basically
did. With the help of my NAWIC friends, we went to all the hog
roasts, fish fries, chicken suppers--whatever was going on in
town where we thought some potential customers might be at--and
passed out literature. I was so busy the first month that I didn't
have time to learn how to go about getting registered for a business
in Illinois."
An important factor for business owners is their family. "I
really like the one-person office right now. I've been a single
mother of two children forever and to keep the office small like
this--to have that control--has really made my life easier as
far as raising the children and running the business," says
Miller. "I've always included them in my work and to me
that is a big encouragement. My son at 20 can run a crew and
my daughter at ten can answer the phone beautifully. My daughter
says she wants to go into surveying, but my son also said that
at ten. Now he doesn't even want to touch it. However, I wouldn't
be surprised some day if they both became surveyors--it's in
their blood." Miller got her start in surveying, not surprisingly,
by working for her father after school and during summers.
For women working in the surveying profession, there are certain
advantages to being female. The most obvious advantage takes
the form of women-owned business enterprises (WBEs), although
not all women see this set-aside status as a good thing. Woman-owned
businesses can be certified as a WBE, which allows them to compete
with other WBEs and DBEs (disadvantaged business enterprises)
for the percentage of public contracts that must be set aside
for minority businesses. This set-aside status gives WBEs a better
chance to win public contracts since they do not have to bid
against all available firms all the time.
Recognition is also a big advantage. Because there are so few
women in surveying, the surveyors who are women are noticed and
remembered. "You really earn the admiration of people even
when you are not trying, because you have to prove yourself capable
of so many different things," says Flo Smith.
Some of the women cite psychological differences, such as better
communication and problem-solving skills and orientation to detail,
as advantages for women. "Women deal with people differently
than men do, and it's been a real learning process for me, working
in a male-dominated field, to see that difference," says
Lathrop.
Offering Encouragement
Perhaps the true test of a person's love
of his or her chosen field is the answer to the question, "Would
you encourage others to enter this profession?" All but
one of the women we interviewed answered yes (the one said low
pay and low esteem for professionals were the main reasons).
Advantages mentioned by the rest of the women include numerous
opportunities, rapid growth, and a wide variety of functions.
As Darcy Crum puts it, "It's such a varied field--that's
what I like about it. You are not pigeonholed--you can do research,
field work, office work, mapping, and drafting. There's just
a gamut of things that are available for you to do. You have
to have good communications skills, you have to use history and
math--it's a very well-rounded profession."
It is obvious these women enjoy surveying, and having already
"paid their dues" in their pursuit of a surveying career,
they have words of wisdom for those interested in working in
the profession. "Continuous upgrading of one's expertise
is essential. A person must be motivated to learn; to handle
stress and deadlines; to make important decisions and make sure
they are correct decisions; to work well with people; to be aware
of proper business procedures; and to be ethical and honest,"
says Miller. Loyce Smith adds: "I would recommend that women
interested in surveying stay in good physical condition and get
a well-rounded education with plenty of math. It would be a good
idea to know how to do some work with the older instruments and
older methods so that they know whether or not to believe the
electronic answers." Probably the most common traits that
have led to successful careers for these women are having a strong
math and science background and being persistent in the pursuit
of one's vocation, despite the obstacles.
Encouraging those interested in surveying is only half the battle,
however; the other half is educating those who know very little,
if anything, about the profession. All the women agreed upon
two major strategies: familiarizing the general public on the
profession, and informing students, all the way down to the kindergarten
level, about this career option. (And what does one say to kindergarteners
about surveying? "Your swing set being on somebody else's
property or when your mommy yells at you about not being allowed
off your property," according to Darcy Crum.)
High schools are the most common places to promote surveying,
and the most common method is a career day. Most of the women
we spoke to have participated in career days. TrigStar programs
are another way to promote surveying to students. Surveyors with
children have a natural advantage when it comes to getting the
word out in the classrooms: speaking to their child's own class.
Starting when her daughter was in first grade (she is now in
fifth grade), Miller explains, "I would take the equipment
in and acquaint the kids with measuring and mapping techniques.
I wanted to show them that this is a profession that you can
go into with a lot of pride. At the high school I donated my
surveying work to put in the ball fields, with my son's help.
He would also bring home friends who wanted to learn about land
surveying and would want to work. That happened quite a lot,"
she continues.
However, before one can participate in a career day, the surveyor
sometimes has to educate the adults. "A local high school
guidance counselor called me and I told her what I did and what
I was going to do in my presentation, and she sent me a letter
to 'Joanne Darcy Crum, Land Developer.' When I got in there,
she had no idea whatsoever, even after I had spoken with her
on the phone, about what a land surveyor did. And this is somebody
who is a guidance counselor. If they don't know what land surveying
is, how are the students going to know?"
In a 1992 report by the National Society of Professional Engineers,
"The Glass Ceiling & Women in Engineering," as
discussed in its August-September 1992 newsletter Industry
Engineer, chief executive officers of construction companies
believed that a significant obstacle to women's advancement is
the lack of female role models. Indeed, most of the women we
interviewed did not have any female mentors, if they even knew
of any other women in the profession while they were coming up
through the ranks. "Having a female role model is extremely
important. You can pretend to be one of the boys for a long time,
but there are things that will happen that you will need a sister
to talk to. The one [problem] I hear about most frequently is
not being part of the club, not being accepted in the higher
echelons. On the job, quite often you are hired for some affirmative
action program and you are not necessarily in the loop, and you
may sense it. You don't complain, you just work around it--and
this is when you need a female friend to talk to," says
Woodbury Straight.
Merritt agrees that role models are valuable. "We need to
see what other women are doing. I think it is very important.
We also need to get the word out that there are women in surveying
and women in construction."
Role models provide support not only for others in the field,
but also for those outside the profession. As Weidener explains,
"The more that females are in the limelight and show what
they have done, the more that other females become attracted
to the profession because they feel they can do it too, and that
they are not out there alone."
Many of the women currently in surveying are role models, whether
they know it or not, and will be mentors if they are not already.
This is an important realization since there are so few women
in the profession now, and because of the increasing numbers
expected in the future.
The individuals we talked to are just a sampling of the women
who followed the same routes into the profession as their male
counterparts and became experienced and dedicated surveyors.
Picture Caption
Flo smith, owner of Flo Smith, CCA, a survey instrument consulting
firm in Peoria, Illinois, that she started in 1986, meets up
with acquaintance Terry Fredericks, a surveyor at Casper and
Associates, Westchester, Illinois, in the exhibit hall at the
American Congress on Surveying and Mapping 1990 Annual Convention
and Exposition in Denver, Colorado. Smith has been instrumental
in the National Society of Professional Surveyors Forum for Women
in Surveying.
Sidebar Story #1
Surveying's Next
Generation
Picture Caption
As a senior at Pickford High School (Michigan), Ginger Michalskl
worked for a local surveying firm during the school year and
then full-time in the summer. In the fall she became a first-year
student in the surveying engineering program at Ferris State
University, Big Rapids, Michigan.
It was just a suggestion, but the surveying
profession gained another member because of it. When Ginger Michalski,
a Pickford, Michigan, 17-year-old high school senior who likes
math visited Ferris State University, Big Rapids, Michigan, looking
for something in technology, it was suggested that she check
out the surveying engineering program. After talking to Professor
Sayed Hashimi, head of the surveying engineering program, and
learning more about surveying (this was the first she had ever
heard of it), she returned to Pickford High School and entered
a mentor program with Northwoods Land Surveying in Sault Ste.
Marie, Michigan. One day a week for six weeks Michalski worked
at Northwoods, which was no small feat since Novembers in the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan can be quite nasty. This summer Northwoods
hired her for full-time work. "I did a little bit of everything--I
was on the rod for awhile, I worked with the instruments, and
I did a little bit of research," says Michalski. "I
like being outside and the math is pretty cool."
Although it is too early to know exactly what she wants to do
upon graduation, Michalski plans to obtain her surveyor's license,
get a job in the surveying profession, most likely within the
state, and "maybe some day start my own company." In
the meantime, she'll be hitting the books, and running the traverses.
for the next four years.
Sidebar Story #2
59 Years Experience
Picture Caption
Mary C. Feindt, PS, president of Charlevoix Abstract & Engineering
Co., Charlevoix, Michigan, began her surveying career in 1938,
and is seen here in the 1950's with a level.
One special female role model in the
surveying profession, as attested to by several of the women
we spoke to, is Mary C. Feindt, PS, president of Charlevoix Abstract
& Engineering Co., Charlevoix, Michigan. Says Wendy Lathrop,
PLS, manager of the Geographic Search & Service Department
at Charles Jones, Inc., Trenton, New Jersey: "I have a great
deal of respect for Mary Feindt--she's accomplished a great deal.
People listen to her because she knows what she's doing. She's
been doing it a long time and has a lot of expertise. I respect
people who do not have to use brute strength to do their job.
They just go along and do what they want and get professional
satisfaction and do a topnotch job like she does."
In 1938 Feindt was the only woman to graduate from the University
of Michigan (U of M) with a bachelor's degree in geodesy and
surveying. In an August-September 1982 (Vol. 7, No. 4) P.O.B.
profile, Feindt described her college experience: "The professors
tried to get me to go into electrical engineering. One professor,
the first time I was in his class, said he'd taught three girls
and hadn't gotten along with any of them. He wondered if I wanted
to get out. But I stayed and then he was very good to me. All
year I'd go in after class and he'd help me a lot. Math was very
easy; but I grew up playing with dolls and it was difficult for
me to learn how machinery worked. This professor then got me
my first job, which was in Charlevoix, and I'm still there."
In 1944 she received her master's degree in civil engineering
from U of M, bought the firm where she started her career, and
received her license. She has served as the county surveyor for
Charlevoix County chairperson of the Michigan State Board of
Land Surveyors, member of the Board of Governors for the American
Land Title Association (ALTA), and chairperson of the American
Congress on Surveying and Mapping's (ACSM's) ALTA Liaison Committee
and of ALTA's ACSM Liaison Committee. In fact, she counts the
approval of surveying standards for ALTA and ACSM as her most
memorable achievement in her career.
Upon the anniversary of her fiftieth year in her surveying business
(August 12, 1994), Feindt commented on women in surveying: "Any
women entering the profession should be doing it for the love
of the profession, not because it's a man's world. Surveying
is a beautiful profession and it doesn't matter if it's a man
or a woman doing the work." With her 50 years as a basis,
(for 35 years she was the only licensed female surveyor in Michigan),
she advises, "Women will need to work a little harder--the
general population hasn't entirely accepted men and women being
equal. There will be some obstacles, but they can be overcome,
although women shouldn't be demanding about it. If you work hard,
people will automatically recognize your efforts."
This article first appeared in the October-November 1994 issue
of POB magazine.
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