Where did you study? I studied at New Mexico State from 2013 to 2017 when I obtained my Bachelor of Science degree in Surveying Engineering while also graduating with over 20 credit hours in the Civil Engineering Technology program.
Why is it important for kids to know about surveying and the wider geospatial industry? Surveying is important to introduce back into schools because there are students that want to be able to pursue a great career that allows one to be outdoors but just don’t know its an option. In land surveying there are so many options available all the way from being a survey technician to party chief to a licensed surveyor. There is also endless job opportunities in this industry whereas the engineering fields have hundreds of graduates each semester from colleges competing for the same jobs.
If you/your company had a GKiS character, what would it be? This is a hard question just because I’m not the artistic type. The company that I recently founded is focused on Real estate and land development projects utilizing drones for aerial imagery. We also use 3D scanners on various projects. If I had to describe the character it would be on that embraces technology as part of surveying.
One of my favourite memories as a surveyor was working in the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. I did two overnight shifts where we undertook the annual monitoring of the tunnel. This works is used to check for any movement within the tunnel due to it sitting on the harbour floor. I got to walk through the tunnel attaching prisms to the walls, and even got to walk in the tunnels joining the north and south tunnels! I also got to sit down within the control room, where there was a wall full of tv screens watching the traffic. I thought those things only existed within the movies!”
“My favourite experience of surveying will most likely be when I was in the North Yorkshire Moors surveying the Land of Iron Kilns, with nobody around me apart from hikers and sheep! The history contained within these small sites was nothing short of amazing, and to be a part of capturing the history of these structures before they dilapidated any further was truly an honour. It was also my first job where I didn’t have a GNSS fix and had to traverse from the local town up the hills!”
“In 2014, I was asked to fly to Australia to acquire mobile LiDAR data to as-built the dirt work on a very large site on the western coast. We used a Trimble MX2 to capture the data on a very active construction site. The project was riddled with problems that had to be solved and we were working 16 hours a day to get it all done and get back stateside in time for a family gathering. It was very challenging but we adopted an adapt and overcome attitude that got us through it”. 
“This is a recent memory but it will stick with me. In the over 15 years in the industry I have been primarily in the office, however, recently I went out to the jobsite with another co-worker to find our last few boundary monuments and look for county line monuments. What makes this experience unique is that I went with another female surveyor that runs her crew. It is extremely rare to have one woman on a crew let alone two. It was the first for me and inspiring. 
Another memory I have is getting to share my profession with my children and speaking to the next generation. A few years ago, I took my kids to the Capital in Texas where I spoke about Land Surveying during a Legislative Session and showed them around the original General Land Office of Texas. I also like to show them that surveying is all around us when we are out and about, like new developments and how they relate to surveying in our everyday life. We even found surveying equipment on display at Disney world”.
“A memorable survey just came up in my FB memories from 4 years ago, where we did a sectional retracement of the entire square mile so a home owner could build a road across federal land to access their parcel. They needed the road to build their dream home. It was back in the hills & hollows northwest of Lake Pleasant in Arizona. Lots of hiking and very rugged terrain”. 
These seemingly improbable events expose another story. Soon I was to meeting an aged Cannibal, with barely a lap-lap to cover himself, but room for a warriors knife and axe! Merely a prelude to the event that followed, I was fortunate to have my Island Assistant with me, to assist in communication. 
A bit more information about what Jamie was doing this day is attached- a “
“I had been doing surveying on very diverse and odd places. One worth to mention was one time I was traveling in the middle of nowhere Mexico, willing to show a laser scanner to a coal mine company. That day basically what ever could go wrong was going wrong. All of a sudden I was just in the middle of a huge coal stockpiles field, and with that bad luck streak as you might expected, there was a power failure with the power source of the scanner, that setback seemed sealed the doomed destiny of the visit, when a guy of the coal company said, no problem I’ll bring a power cord, being half a mile from the closet power outlet, it was surreal to watch the guy pull the longest power cord extension I had ever seen, the scanner worked perfectly plug to the power supply, we even moved farther from where we were and that definitely saved the day!”
Project: Solomon Islands
survey, as you can see sometimes it takes a team to setup the tide pole (TP image). It was a nice change from our usual survey areas that we didn’t see the red eyes of crocodiles at night as we took our measurements by torchlight. At one stage during the survey our ship had to go and have engineering repairs, so the two survey launches and a small runabout were left on a deserted island for three days. We had food from the ship, but didn’t end up eating much of it as we caught fresh fish and shellfish throughout the day. We worked hard, but relaxed around the fire at night under the stars and miles from anywhere, and we helped make the area safer for the next generation”. 
One of my favourite multi-disciplinary moments was working for National Parks and Wildlife Services. We were working for them to do cliff line stability assessments to help realign a hiking track after the 2019/2020 bushfires. I got to visit parts of the park most other people aren’t allowed to see and 
combine my two passions, geology and mapping. Workwise, I flew drones along cliff lines to take aerial photos we used to create 3D models and then got to sit down and sketch the cliffs and the geological features. Working on cliff lines with sea caves all along the coast, whale watching, 4WDing and stumbling into surreal environments was something special and I’ll never forget. Finding a cliff full of quartz crystals was the icing of the cake!Please fill out the form below to access our Translation Options Hotsheet:
Name:
Miles Darwood
Age:
Ten… almost eleven!
Specialist Areas:
Coding, gaming, driving anything with a motor
Likes:
Racing drones and go-karts, being Player One, and his favourite games controller, which he has named ‘Lucy’.
Dislikes:
Game lag, campers, and noobs. Going anywhere slowly, especially in his mum’s car. According to Miles, his mum drives so slow she could get a parking ticket in the fast lane.
Bio:
Miles has been into gaming since his thumbs were developed enough to wiggle a joystick, and his love of go-karting is almost as long lived. At the age of three, he set the trike lap record in his nursery, and he’s never looked back. If he’s not in the middle of a real or virtual race, you can usually find Miles rebuilding his gaming PC or his custom go kart for the umpteenth time. He prefers to talk via text. He is currently exploring the possibility of communicating solely in emojis.
Likely to say things like:
“*insert an extreme amount of emojis here*”