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60 Years of Surveying in Retrospect
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By Stanford J. Zeccolo, PE, LS
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Sister Inez was a nun in the Order of Saint Joseph. She was the math
teacher at a small Catholic High School called Cathedral Academy
in Albany, New York. In my first year of high school, she taught me
algebra and trigonometry. In my second year, it was plane geometry. It
came easy to me and I knew I liked math and the sciences. So there it
is. I am going to college. But how? My parents were divorced and I was
living with my grandparents who ran a small restaurant and bar. I had
no money and they were struggling to keep their business afloat, so I
could not expect them to pay for my college.
I discovered that NYS College of Forestry at Syracuse University was a
State School and it was tuition free for State residents. When I applied
there I found out I was too late. They were filled. But, they did suggest
that I try the NYS Ranger School at Wanakena, NY. That was a forest
technician program of twelve months with a certificate of graduation.
Great! This is something I could do and afford by myself. I loved the
woods and the outdoors – so forestry sounded ok and a good fit for me.
It was there, at the Ranger School in 1955, that I discovered surveying
was a major part of their program and my math skills from CA would
serve me well. Thank you Sister Inez!!
Upon graduation, I went to work for the US Forest Service in Quinault,
Washington. I was assigned to the district forest surveyor. Under him,
we surveyed new logging roads, bridges and culverts. I really liked this.
It was fun. Thus, my career was launched.
I returned East, after two years, to continue my formal education
and soon combined working full time for a consulting engineer and
attending college courses at night. The firm was a small one, so I got to
do a little of everything. Field work included stadia location, running
levels, construction stakeouts and boundary surveys. We had manual
calculators, adding machines and a ten decimal book of natural
logarithms, right down to one second of arc. I used to spend days just
looking up sines and cosines. I often said “that someday, someone will
invent a black box that will spit out the numbers for each angle and we
would not have to look them up”.
It was good that my employer was licensed as both a professional
engineer and a land surveyor. So I applied for a land surveying license
as soon as I qualified. At the time it was eight years for a land surveying
internship. In early 1964, I took the exam and passed it. I was then
placed in charge of all surveying projects and the crews. Most location
work was done by stadia and if more accuracy was needed then
everything was done by transit and tape.
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EMPIRE STATE SURVEYOR / VOL. 57 • NO 6/ 2021 • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 25