Meet Project Manager Nolan Mark (Fort Wayne Design Center), who soon will be Washington, D.C.-bound to discuss ways to strengthen the surveying profession nationwide.

What’s happening: The Indiana Society of Professional Land Surveyors (ISPLS) chose Nolan as its Young Surveyor Representative for Indiana. He will attend the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS) Spring Business Meeting April 1 – 3 to address ways to attract new talent to the surveying profession. The session includes meeting with US House and Senate politicians to discuss legislation affecting surveying.

Why that’s important: “I am honored to represent Indiana and join a surveying community that only seems to be getting smaller,” Nolan says. “Of the 600+ licensed surveyors in Indiana, only 20 are under the age of 35!”

He’s a leader in Indiana: Nolan is also establishing a young surveyors’ state network. A young surveyor is someone under the age of 35 or who has earned their degree within the last ten years. The group’s goals include promoting land surveying at high school/college career fairs and making students more aware of the profession. He also is the 2020 Northeast ISPLS Chapter president, working with surveyors from nine Indiana counties.

What he likes about being a professional surveyor: “Surveyors wear a lot of hats … from doing boundary surveys in the field to analyzing a scanned point cloud in the office extracting data to give to engineers. Surveyors literally leave their mark, or monument, on the world to be found later by the next surveyor. What surveyors do today lasts a lifetime.”