THE NEVADA TRAVERSE - Nevada Association of Land Surveyors

Great Basin
Chapter Report
by Carl C. deBaca, PLS
T
he Great Basin Chapter meets on the 2 nd Monday
of each month at the Gold Dust West Casino and
restaurant in Elko. We have held meetings in January,
February, March and April so far in 2012. We typically
have 8-12 attendees for the meetings, although we had 15 for
our March meeting. That particular meeting saw Marty Crook
and Jeff Flamini of Monsen Engineering, along with a Trimble
representative, give an informative presentation on basic
equipment maintenance together with a lengthy discussion of
Trimble’s new Business Center software.
At each meeting we generally engage in vigorous discussion of
such topics as LightSquared, TrigStar and the current status
of the national organization with respect to the NSPS/ACSM
merger and potential effects on NALS members. At our April
9th meeting we discussed highlights of the recent NALS/
CLSA conference and joined in congratulating the recipients of
the Roger P. Monsen Scholarship, Savannah Winans, and the
Thomas A. Foote Scholarship, Jolene Hoffman. Both are GBC
students and both were attending the meeting.
Of particular concern to our chapter is the status and well-being
of the Great Basin College Surveying/Geomatics program. It
is typically an item for discussion at each chapter meeting and
given the state of the economy and the status of the program,
we have been discussing ways that NALS could help the
program through increased outreach and recruiting efforts,
possible assistance with teaching and help with software.
This is definitely a critical issue for NALS, given that GBC
has made it known that the program has been designated as
underperforming and that such programs must take steps to
justify their continued existence. Finding more students for the
program is imperative. Of course, that would then trigger the
need for a second instructor, but that would be an okay problem
to have.
In the coming months we have several speakers lined up, including
a Topcon representative, a Cashman/Trimble representative,
Dave Morlan from the BLM and a representative from NDOT.
We have been outreaching to the mining community and have
had a couple mine surveyors begin attending our meetings.
Through the use of the CST examination, which we proctor
hereabouts, the GBC mine surveying class and the Elko Mining
Exposition, we are trying to forge closer ties to this group of
surveyors with hopes that we can convince many of them to join
NALS. We look to sponsor 2 local area high schools for the 2012
TrigStar examination with a third school possibly signing up.
The Great Basin Chapter is having their annual summer
picnic this year on Saturday, July 21 in the picturesque town of
Lamoille. We hope to see you there!
U
The Nevada Traverse Vol. 39, No. 2, 2012 31