It’s Infinity Land Surveying LLC Character spotlight!
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Company Name – Infinity Land Surveying, LLC - Location – We are based in Phoenix, AZ but we are licensed in Arizona and New Mexico with plans on Nevada and Colorado in the near future.
- Why is it important for your company to help Get Kids into Survey? Having 3 kids of my own, I want them to have a successful career and love what they do. A career in Surveying provides just that, and there is so much opportunity for the next generation. Our biggest obstacle is that most kids do not know what Surveying is. If they did, we would not need to recruit because once they saw how rewarding this career is, they would be lined up at the door with applications in hand…lol.
- What do you do? I run the day-to-day operations at Infinity Land Surveying. This includes talking with clients to understand their needs, preparing proposals, drafting existing maps\plats, calculating coordinates, upload\download data collectors, performing fieldwork, drafting the field work, and creating different types of Survey drawings (Boundary, Topographic, As-Builts). Once these maps and documents have their final drafts, they are then and recorded with the County.
- How long have you been in the survey industry? I started going to school for a Land Surveying Engineering in 1999 and graduated in 2003 from New Mexico State University. I then went to work in the private land development industry for 8 years, then went into the public sector working for the State Power Company for 6 years before starting my own company. All in all I’ve been in this industry 24 years….and counting 😊
- How did you end up getting into the geospatial industry? I took a geology class when I was at community college and one of our labs was mapping a prehistoric formation. We woke up early and drove way out into the country. Once there, we loaded up our back packs with everything we needed for the day and started hiking out in to the unknown. Being that it was a community college class, it was small and we were able to have great conversations with our professors. My geology professor could tell I was in hog heaven running around the hills with a backpack and a camera strapped to me. On the way back to the truck he asked me about what I was going to major in once I transferred to the University. I really didn’t know so I said “Well this was fun, maybe I’ll study Geology”. He just shook his head and said “Why in the world would you want to go and do that?” I was kind of shocked that he said..lol, but I responded that what we did today was so fun and I’d love to get paid to go off-roading and hiking 😊 He smiled and told me about the Surveying Engineering Program at New Mexico State University. My next trip to NMSU I made an appointment to meet with the Dept. head. His name was Dr. Reilly and he welcomed me with open arms, took me to lunch, and then showed me the amount of jobs and the salaries that Professional Land Surveryors were making and the rest is History!!
- State a funny fact about you…I was named after my Great Great Grandfather (William Masi) who was a Frontier Land Surveyor during the 1880’s. He had a mail order bride because there were very few women on the frontier back then. They had 3 daughters together, but he was the last of his family to carry the “Masi” name and being that he had 3 daughters, he would not be able to carry on the Masi last name, so he decided on a rule that all of his daughters’ sons should have the middle name of “Masi”. Well my Grandfather is William Masi Wing, my father is Daniel Masi Wing, I’m William Masi Wing, and my son is Tanner Masi Wing. The funny part about it, is that I never know anything about this until my 3rd year of going to school for Surveying. 😊 My dads cousin went on a geneology trip when he retired and found all of this information. He even found William Masi’s old pocket compass and gave it to me. One day I plan on going up the Cheyenne, WY and researching some of the Surveys he completed and maybe even retracing them.
- Favourite piece of kit and why? I love my GNSS receivers because I started out turning angles with conventional equipment (total station) on a 2–3-person crew and it would take 3 days to break down a mile section. GPS\GNSS was very new at that time and a lot of the older Surveyors didn’t trust it and wouldn’t use it. This was a great opportunity to learn all the ins and outs of GPS\GNSS so I could convince the others, that it was a great tool. Once I showed them that we could break down a mile section in 4 hours, they became believers..lol.
- Favourite Survey technique and why? Boundary Surveying, because it’s basically like a big treasure hunt. First, you have to research the history and that can be very interesting. Then you have to use clues from the research to calculate search coordinates. Then you get to go out and hunt down those coordinates by car, foot, atv, etc. Just getting to some of these places can be an all-day adventure, but once you get there the real work starts. Using metal detectors and 100-year-old field notes, we comb the desert looking for original monuments. It is a very special feeling when you find a monument that is over 100 years old and your holding the notes from the person who set it with their own hands and sweat.
- Your website
- How did you choose the character and what does he/she/it represent? Mean to you? What’s his/her name? Our character is based on a Buzz Lightyear-ish Surveyor and his trusty sidekick “Norma” the surveying rescue cow 😊 We found her one night while finishing up a boundary survey in the deserts of AZ. She was lost, freezing, and covered in cactus needles. As I started the truck to leave the site, she came running up out of the ditch and directly under my truck. My son thought she was a dog so he jumped out to help. His eyes were as wide as a cucumber slice when he said “Dad, I think it’s a baby cow!” I jumped out of the truck and pulled her out from under the truck where she was trying to get warm, and got all the cactus needles out of her. We weren’t sure what to do, but it was snowing and the coyotes were already howling as it was getting dark. I knew she’d be a goner if we left her, so we put her in the camper shell and took her home. Now fast forward 2 years and she has here own corral, shade, lights, toys, and all the alfalfa she can eat 😊