Stan
Thompson, PLS
In 1970, I was a 16 year old farm boy working as a laborer
on a road construction project cleaning ditches and running errands. The state
inspector for the road project needed someone to help him check elevations on
the road grade by holding a level rod. Thus began my career in surveying.
In 1973, I graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering
Technology and began working for a local land surveyor on rural farm boundaries
in the mountains of Virginia. By 1980, I had worked for 3 surveying/engineering
firms operating in Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky on everything
from city lots to atomic power plants. From 1980 to 1986, I worked for a major
eastern railroad doing track design and right-of-way mapping. From 1986 to
1991, I worked for an engineering firm in Northern Virginia managing surveys of
boundaries, subdivisions and construction. In 1991, I joined a defense
contractor in Florida building computerized geographic information systems
(GIS) for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Air Force. In 1993, I returned to
West Virginia and implemented a digital mapping department for a local
surveying company converting hundreds of USGS quadrangle maps, while
simultaneously supervising a railroad track and bridge construction project for
a large coal mining operation. In 1996, I started my own company to provide
GIS, mapping and database programming services to the coal, oil & gas and
land management industry in the Appalachian Basin.
Today, I am a licensed professional land surveyor in 5
states. Although I do not practice land surveying directly, my surveying
background, education and experience is the reason I can provide GIS support
for my clients that own and manage millions of acres of land with coal, oil
& gas and timber assets throughout the US. Surveying truly is one of those
unique professions that combines practical common sense with state of the art
technology and centuries-old historical documents to build society's bridge
into the digital information age.
Along the way, I have had the pleasure of working with and
learning from professionals in numerous fields, including surveyors, civil
engineers, railroad/highway/bridge design engineers, mining engineers,
geologists, architects, planners, photogrammetrists, land managers, and
computer programmers.
It is important to understand that everything about our
lives has been touched by a surveyor in one way or another. Every city, town,
street/road/interstate, power/water/sewer line, property corner, building,
skyscraper, seawall, manufacturing plant, railroad, tunnel, coal mine, oil/gas
well, nuclear power plant, and even the Great Pyramid of Egypt has been
influenced by surveyors from the original conception of the project to the
final asbuilt location. The surveyor is the first person and last person on the
ground for virtually any land or construction project. From stakeout to
asbuilt, the surveyor sets and maintains the control necessary to locate your
property line or to build the highest skyscraper or to mine the lowest coal seam
or to drill the deepest gas well.
Stan Thompson
Huntington Technology Group, Inc.
Huntington, WV