The Geoholics

Episode 068 - Construction Staking 101

Yet another value-adding episode for all to enjoy and benefit from! Brandyn Jones, LS is the owner of Benchmark Surveying & Consulting. Jason Rogers is a Project Surveyor for Bowman Consulting. These two have close to 50 years of construction staking knowledge and wisdom between them! We discuss the inherent challenges of this challenging way to make a living including the importance of contract language, risk mitigation, safety, communication, control, field notes, communication, quality control, as-builts and communication!!! We even talked about the qualities of a true "professional" construction surveyor and why the heck companies feel the need to race each other to the bottom by providing these services for pennies on the dollar. Zach "Indiana" Gooch is the winner of January's listener prize being a $100 Amazon gift card! Become a Geoholics Patron, subscribe to the Geoholics YouTube channel and stay tuned for some exciting news!!! Music by Jefferson Starship.

Episode 067 - Davy McDowell, PE, COO NCEES

Who knew?!?!? Who knew that The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) has been around since 1920? Who knew that NCEES develops and scores the FE, PE, FS and PS exams for engineering and surveying licensure? Who knew that you can setup a MyNCEES account to conveniently track your professional licenses and continuing education hours? Who knew that there is a NCEES Surveying Education Award that recognizes surveying/geomatics programs? Thanks to Davy McDowell, PE, the COO of NCEES, we learned all there is to know about these things and so much more! Be sure to email the 4 podwords for January BEFORE 5pm MST Tuesday 2/2 to info@thegeoholics.com! Music for this episode by Styx!

Episode 066.5 - Project Management 101

As you know by now, our sole objective is to "add value & make friends". Not only did we do that with this episode, BUT we also had the person who coined that phrase join us as well. Glen Abramowski aka Glenski, is a Supplier Program Management Specialist at Boeing. Tony Mintrup, PMP is a seasoned Project Manager for Klein Tools. They joined us to talk about what it takes to be a successful project manager. We touch on the triple constraint being scope, schedule and budget, the 7 P's (proper prior planning prevents piss poor production) and everything from project initiation to project closeout. Glen & Tony provided some great insight to this very challenging part of what we do as geomatics professionals. Whether you are a provider of a professional service or develop and sell products, there is something in this episode for you! Music by Social Distortion! 

Episode 065 - Dr. Nik Smilovsky & Phil Ponce, PE

Check out this week's episode when we got caught up with Dr. Nik Smilovsky from Bad Elf and Phil Ponce, PE. Phil is the Vice President of Engineering Mapping Solutions, Inc. AND a huge fan of the Bad Elf products. Nik sums up 2020 and talks about how Bad Elf not only survived but actually thrived and advanced as it pertains to sales and research and development. Some great things coming down the Bad Elf pipe in the weeks and months to come. Phil is an avid user of the Bad Elf Flex receiver and has even developed a "setup" that includes utilizing an Ebike and building a proprietary GIS platform for all day, real-time data collection. Afterall...friends let friends collect Bad (Elf) data! Be sure to listen for the weekly podword. Please consider becoming a patron by visiting the Geoholics Patreon page and take a sec to subscribe to The Geoholics YouTube channel. Music for this episode by Queen!

Episode 064 - Thomas Olmsted

Happy New Year Geoholics! We could not have chosen a better guest to kick off 2021. Thomas Olmsted served 9 years of military service as an active-duty Navy SEAL. During his tenure in the SEAL Teams, he deployed multiple times in support of the global war on terror. He was a member of SEAL Team 1,7, augment with Team 5, and spent time as an instructor training SEALs prior to going overseas. Prior to his military service, Thomas played football and baseball at Troy University where he received All-Conference Honors multiple years and was voted Captain of the football team during his senior season. Upon graduation with a B.S Degree in Social Science and a Minor in Business, Thomas played in the 2006 Senior Bowl and was an undrafted free agent with the Miami Dolphins. He is also an Alumni of Harvard Business School, PLDA and is currently the Vice President of National Accounts for Pavecon, a national construction company. We were honored to have an in-depth discussion with Thomas about leadership and operational excellence. Lots of new and exciting changes happening with the Geoholics that you will not want to miss. The value of this episode is off the charts! Music provided by Metallica.

2020 Year in Review Episode

Thank you…thank you…thank you…and thank you again...what a year! The boys take some time to reflect on the past year revisiting a number of highlights along the way. From Episode 018 all the way through Episode 063 and everything in between! If you’ve been a fan from the “point of beginning” or have just started “following our footsteps”, you’re not going to want to miss this “retracement” of The Geoholics in 2020! We even had some live guests join us to talk about their individual episodes and how they are handling their new found fame. Music for this episode by Neil Diamond!

Episode 063 - Jason Schroeder & Brandon Montero w/Elevate Construction IST

Do not miss this Top 5 value-adding episode! Jason Schroeder & Brandon Montero drop by to share their passions and motivation for creating Elevate Construction IST (ECIST). ECIST exists to improve the lives of all construction workers and managers in all positions everywhere. By scaling up excellence through podcasts, blogs, videos, in-person consulting, online and in-person training, in addition to large scale boot camps and events, ECIST will provide needed training to a new generation of workers, foremen, field engineers (surveyors), and superintendents. Training that creates a strategic advantage. Training that adds lasting value within teams and on-site. Training that prevents failed projects, crash landings, poorly run projects, unsafe conditions, and poor team health. RESPECTING WORKERS | TRAINING LEADERS | PRESERVING FAMILIES. Consider this episode a gift from The Geoholics that keeps on giving. Music for this episode by OneRepublic.

Episode 062 - Lauren Holland & Ann Allen

Cyberbullying or cyberharassment is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic means and is the subject of this week's podcast. We were fortunate to be joined by Lauren Holland & Ann Allen to discuss this sensitive topic. Ann is the Chief Executive Officer at Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors (CICES) and Lauren is the CICES Co-Chair 2040 Forum. These ladies played a vital role in performing research and data acquisition for “Unsocial Networking”, a research article recently published in Civil Engineering Surveyor which is the monthly journal of the CICES. In addition, their glasses game is second to none. Cyberbullying is a huge social issue that is affecting people of all ages across the globe and needs to be discussed openly more often. Do not miss this value-adding conversation! Music for the episode by The Dead South.​

Episode 061 - Michael Twohig, Sean Wolfe, PG & Robert Ramsey, PE

If you have ever wondered what the acronym SUE stands for but were afraid to ask, this is the episode for you! We were honored to have 3 respected experts from the Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) world joins us for this episode. Michael Twohig is a 34 year SUE veteran and the Director of Subsurface Mapping at DGT Associates in Boston. Sean Wolfe, PG is a Senior Vice President and the Mountain Region Manager at CobbFendley & Associates. Robert Ramsey, PE is a Vice President at T2 Utility Engineers and oversees the West United States Operations. We collectively define the basic SUE quality levels, discuss ASCE 38 (SUE Guidlelines) and some of the pending revisions, the overwhelming benefits of SUE, how technology is advancing SUE data collection and some of the challenges the profession is currently facing. Let’s just say we all learned a lot and barely scratched the surface of this under-valued yet badly needed profession. There will be a SUE 2.0 episode soon to dig a little deeper…no pun intended! Music for this episode by Electric Light Orchestra!

Episode 060 - Adam Kersnowski

The boys, especially Kent (Grokawalski), were really excited to welcome another entrepreneurial minded polack to the show this week! Adam Kersnowski, Co-Founder and COO of AirWorks joined the guys to talk about a potentially game-changing, AI-enabled software that is driven by a recently patented algorithm. AirWorks is an award winning solution that allows the customer to go from aerial imagery and/or point clouds to a CAD drawing in 3 easy steps. They create fully finalized engineering plans in CAD with linework and topography faster and more accurately than ever before. We also collectively try to determine the difference between AI & VR and how they compliment eachother. Music for this episode by Stick Figure!