Hotel

ASPLS has reserved the following discounted nightly room rates for attendees, based on the room type:

Single Queen $127.00
Double Queen Bluffside $148.00
Mountain Top Chalet $162.00
Cabins $175.00 

Please note that room rates are subject to lodging tax, city and state surcharges, as well as a 4% resort fee.  Rates reflect occupancy by up to 2 people (exception chalets/cabins).  There is a $10.00 per person charge for each additional person.  Check-in begins at 4:00 pm and your guests may check out any time before 11:00 am.

To Reserve Your Room: call 256-505-6621 and mention our group code [  ASPLS   ]. Guests can also make reservations online. Visit https://www.reseze.net/servlet/SendPage?hotelid=1793&skipfirstpage=true&page=14095 to book your ASPLS rates online.

Please note that a deposit is required for each reservation made. Deposits are the sum of one night’s lodging plus taxes and are due at the time the reservation is made.

Registration 

Full registration: Available to members and non-members. Discounted early registration through September 16, 2024 Online Registration; Print Registration.

Individual session registration: Best for those that only want to attend THREE OR FEWER sessions.  Discounted early registration through September 16, 2024 Online Registration for MEMBERS; Online Registration for NON-MEMBERS; Print Registration.

Exhibitor Registration: A limited number of table top exhibits are available to companies to display products and services for land surveyors and engineers. Please note space is limited. Register online or see Print Registration.

Schedule of Events

Monday, October 14, 2024

10:00 AM Golf Tournament Benefitting Student Scholarships

4:00 PM – 6:00 PM: Exhibitors Set Up

5:00 PM – 7:00 PM: ASPLS Board Meeting Dinner

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Social Time at the Hickory Lounge

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

7:00 AM: Registration and Breakfast with Exhibitors

8:00 AM – 11:30 AM Session 1A [3.5 PDH] – Milton Denny & Panel - Where Do We Go From Here

8:00 AM – 11:30 AM Session 1B [3.5 PDH] – Thomas Brooks - Being on the Witness Stand: A Surveyor’s View Point

11:30 AM – 1:00 PM Session 2  [1 PDH] – Surveying in Alabama and ASPLS Membership Meeting (includes box lunch)

1:30 PM – 4:00 PM Session 3A [2.5 PDH] – Thomas Brooks - Ethics [1 PDH] and ASPLS Constitutional Workshop [1.5 PDH]

1:30 PM – 4:00 PM Session 3B [2.5 PDH] - Robert Martin - Filling Available Survey Positions with Technology

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM Casino night & dinner: Spouses welcome. Win prizes! $20 for $500 in chips.

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

7:00 AM: Registration and Breakfast with Exhibitors

8:00 AM – 11:30 AM Session 4A [3.5 PDH] – Dick Elgin - Surveyor’s Notes for Plats

8:00 AM – 11:30 AM Session 4B [3.5 PDH] – Bill Hazelton - Least Squares Adjustment

8:00 AM – 11:30 AM Session 4C [3.5 PDH] – Jason Bailey - CST Training

11:30 AM – 12:30 PM Lunch with Exhibitors

12:30 PM – 4:00 PM Session 5A [3.5 PDH] – Dick Elgin - Writing Boundary Descriptions… Rules, Suggestions, Specification and Examples

12:30 PM – 4:00 PM Session 5B [3.5 PDH] – Dr. Min Xu - High-Resolution Surface Mapping with Airborne LiDAR

12:30 PM – 4:00 PM Session 5C [3.5 PDH] – Jason Bailey - CST Training

4:30 PM – 6:30 PM Lake Pavilion Dinner and Corn Hole Games

Thursday, October 17, 2024

7:00 AM: Registration and Breakfast

7:30 AM – 11:30 AM Session 6 [4 PDH] – Standards of Practice Review Part 2 – Panel (Tommy Brooks, Jason Bailey, Tony Manary, Steve Strickland)

Total 18 PDHs

Spouses program will have access to each of the meals and group activities and optional excursions. 

Session Descriptions

Session 1A: "Where Do We Go From Here" - the most important word in our profession is Land Surveying. As of today we are the only group allowed to use Land Surveying in our title. Many different groups desire somehow to add Land Surveying to their title, we must protect these two words at all costs. It is all we have left! Second Speaker – Kevin Hinkle PLS - Presidents Report to the ASPLS Members. Third Speaker – Jason Bailey, PE, PLS - An overview of the Standards of Practice workshop later in the program. Fourth Speaker – Dennis Riordan, PSM National Geodetic Survey - Dennis will update us on status of NGS programs and tools available. Fifth Speaker – Jeff Clendenning, NSPS Director - We as members of ASPLS are also members of NSPS. Jeff will update us on what’s going on in Washington D.C. and other states.

Session 1B: "Being on the Witness Stand." The surveyor is frequently called upon to testify in court about a survey. This course is designed to help the Professional Land Surveyor prepare for court and have a concept of what to expect while in the courtroom. Understand the various ways you can be called to testify. Be able to work with a client, attorney, or Judge to prepare for court. Understanding presenting yourself in a professional manner in the court room.

Session 3A: "Ethics" - qualifies for the 1 hour course required by the State of Alabama every year. "Constitutional Workshop." This course will explore the details of current constitution and by-laws of the Alabama Society of Professional Land Surveyors. It will discuss how the society helps to promote best practices among the surveying professionals thereby protecting the pubic. If will also discuss the future of the constitution and by-laws and possible changes. Participants will get a preview of suggested changes. At the end of the course, participants will be able to sign-up for the upcoming constitutional work group.

Session 3B: "Filling Available Survey Positions with Technology" is a course that focuses on utilizing tech tools to streamline and enhance survey position recruitment. The goal is to improve efficiency, accuracy, and reach in the hiring process.

Session 4A: “Surveyor’s Notes for Plats.” A compiled set of standard plat notes that further explain what the plat shows (and doesn’t show). Notes that help defend the surveyor. Example notes provided.

Session 4B: "Using Least Squares Adjustment." This workshop will discuss the basic theory supporting least squares adjustment, and what it requires for inputs to a least squares adjustment. Setting up the data for an adjustment and correctly reading the output from an adjustment will be covered, with examples. ‘Things that can go wrong’ and ‘Traps for young players’ will also be discussed, so that practitioners can avoid common flaws in least squares use.

Sessions 4C & 5C: "CST Training." Full day session reviewing horizontal distance measurement, vertical distance, measurement, angle and direction measurement, control traversing and computations, coordinate computation, area computations, and grades/slope computations.

Session 5A: "Writing Boundary Descriptions…Rules, Suggestions, Specifications and Examples.” The boundary description must succinctly, clearly, with specificity and certainty describe only one tract that neither causes nor creates gaps or overlaps. This is a high standard. In this presentation the rules, suggestions, specifications and best practices for boundary descriptions are given, along with examples.

Session 5B: "High-Resolution Surface Mapping with Airborne LiDAR." In this session, we will explore the fundamental principles of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology, including how it works, data acquisition methods, and data processing techniques. We will also discuss the various applications of airborne LiDAR, such as topographic mapping, forestry management, urban planning, and disaster risk management.

Speakers

Thomas W. Brooks, Jr., LS

Mr. Brooks is a survey manager for EnSite USA working from his home office in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He a Professional Surveyor in Alabama and eighteen other states with over thirty-five years of professional experience. From 1986 until 2008 Thomas ran his own surveying firm, Brooks & Brooks, Inc., in Tuscaloosa Alabama, specializing in Corps of Engineers contracts, cell towers, pipelines, and ALTA surveys. Since then, Thomas has held responsibilities for pipeline surveys nationwide and has supervised up to forty-five survey crews, ensuring proper training and quality control. Thomas is a past-president of both the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS) and the Alabama Society of Professional Land Surveyors (ASPLS). He served as chair of the Council on Federal Procurement of Architectural and Engineering Services (COFPAES). Currently, Thomas is a member of the ALTA/NSPS Standards Committee. Thomas taught surveying merit badge at three Boy Scout national jamborees and rewrote an edition of the Survey Merit Badge Book. He has served as an expert witness on boundary disputes and condemnation cases. Thomas has presented on various surveying topics, including rights-of-ways and easements, standards, safety and ethics. In his spare time, Thomas and his wife, Jeanine, enjoy traveling having visited all fifty states and over 350 national parks.

Dr. Dick Elgin, PS, PE

A second generation surveyor, Dr. Elgin was raised in St. James, Missouri and in his late parents' surveying business located in nearby Rolla. After high school Dick joined the Army, went through helicopter flight school, was made a Warrant Officer, and spent 1969 in Vietnam flying the Hughes OH6A “LOH” and the ubiquitous UH-1 "Huey" with the Americal Division. Following the Army he received the BSCE and MSCE degrees from the Missouri University of Science and Technology (S&T, Rolla, MO) and his PhD from the University of Arkansas. Leaving Arkansas he joined the faculty of the Department of Civil Engineering at S&T as an Assistant Professor (1980-1984) and is now Adjunct Professor Emeritus. From 1984 until 2008 Dick was the owner and President of Elgin Surveying & Engineering, Inc. Semi-retired, Dick currently works for Archer-Elgin Engineering, Surveying and Architecture. He is a former member of the Missouri Board for Architects, Professional Engineers, Professional Land Surveyors and Professional Landscape Architects; a Past-President of the Missouri Society of Professional Surveyors; a member of both S&T's and the University of Arkansas' Academy of Civil Engineers; a member of S&T's Order of the Golden Shillelagh; and on the Board of Directors of S&T’s Alumni Association. With the late Dr. David Knowles and the late Dr. Joe Senne, Dick coauthored the Celestial Observation Handbook and Ephemeris and codeveloped the "ASTRO" celestial observation software products. He coauthored Legal Principles of Boundary Location for Arkansas and The U.S. Public Land Survey System for Arkansas. Dick is the author of The U.S. Public Land Survey System for Missouri, Riparian Boundaries for Arkansas and Riparian Boundaries for Missouri. He also wrote Shoulda Played the Flute, a memoir of his year flying helicopters in Vietnam. Dick was Arkansas’ surveying and mapping expert in a state riparian boundary dispute with Mississippi, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. See Arkansas v. Mississippi, 471 U.S. 377 (1985). He is an avid collector and researcher of early American surveying equipment, and owns one of the largest private collections of such equipment in the United States. Semi-retired, he and his wife enjoy touring by bicycle, RV or in their perfectly restored 1976 Alfa Romeo 1600 GT Junior or 1967 Austin Cooper 1275 S.

Dr. Bill Hazelton

Dr. Bill Hazelton is an Associate Professor at Troy University in the Geospatial Informatics Department, where he has been working for the past 6 years. He has previously taught at a number of other higher-educational institutions in the US and Australia. He has been a licensed surveyor since 1985, worked in Antarctica for a year as a glaciologist, run a number of businesses, and has surveyed on three continents. Bill is a past president of the Surveying and Geomatics Educators Society and was a director of ASPRS.

Robert Martin, PS

Employed by Navagation Electronics since 2006, Robert is a licensed surveyor in Arkansas and Mississippi. Robert works with the surveyors in Alabama and the panhandle of Florida for NEI selling and training on Trimble geospatial products. Roberts survey carrier started in 1986 with Mickle & Waggner in Fort Smith AR. You can find Robert on YouTube under Surveying with Robert with 11,000 subscribers, where he enjoys sharing his experience and knowledge of surveying.

Dr. Min Xu

Speaker Min Xu is an assistant professor in the Department of Geospatial Informatics at Troy University. Dr. Xu received her Ph.D. degree in Geography from The University of Alabama. She has over 10 years of research and field experience in environmental remote sensing and GIS (Geographic Information Science).

Additional speaker bios coming soon