Hotel

ASPLS has reserved special rates of $155 per night (single or double). Discounted self-parking of $15.00 per day. Please note that room rates are subject to state and local taxes and fees. To reserve your room visit:

https://www.hyatt.com/events/en-US/group-booking/BHMHR/G-ASP3

Registration 

Full registration: Available to members and non-members. Discounted early registration for Surveyors.

Individual session registration: Best for those that only want to attend THREE OR FEWER sessions.  Discounted early registration is coming soon.

Exhibitor Registration: Come to meet land surveyors and engineers in Alabama! Display products and services in our exhibit hall. Exhibit registration is open!

Schedule of Events

Monday, October 26, 2026

3:00 PM – 5:00 PM: Exhibitors Set Up

4:00 PM – 6:00 PM: ASPLS Board Meeting

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Social Time

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

7:00 AM: Registration and Breakfast with Exhibitors

7:00 AM – 7:50 AM [1 PDH] – Mississippi Standards, Updated 2026 (1 PDH) - presented by Thomas Brooks

8:00 AM – 11:30 AM Session 1A [3.5 PDH] – Twenty-Seven Miles of Evidence: The Rapides–Grant Parish Boundary Dispute, Part 1, presented by Frank Willis

8:00 AM – 11:30 AM Session 1B [3.5 PDH] – Plat of Survey (final title TBD, will include 1 hour of Ethics), presented by Milton Denny, Matt Beam

11:30 AM - Box Lunch provided

11:45 PM – 1:15 PM Session 2  [1 PDH] – Surveying in Alabama and ASPLS Membership Meeting, presented by Mark Clark

1:30 PM – 5:00 PM Session 3A [3.5 PDH] – Twenty-Seven Miles of Evidence: The Rapides–Grant Parish Boundary Dispute, Part 2, presented by Frank Willis

1:30 PM – 5:00 PM Session 3B [3.5 PDH] – Best Practices in Drone Surveying 2026-presented by Logan Campbell

1:30 PM – 5:00 PM Session 3C [3.5 PDH] – Four Corners - presented by Tommy Brooks

5:00 PM – 7:00 PM Casino Night

7:30 PM - 9:30 PM NSPS Young Surveyors Network Top Golf Event (details pending)

Wednesday, October 28, 2026

7:00 AM: Registration and Breakfast with Exhibitors

8:00 AM – 11:30 AM Session 5A [3.5 PDH] – Catahoula Lake: When Surveying Evidence and the Law Collide, presented by Frank Willis

8:00 AM – 11:30 AM Session 5B [3.5 PDH] – Developing Surfaces: Purposes, Types and Selections presented by Dr. Bill Hazelton

8:00 AM – 11:30 AM Session 5C [3.5 PDH] – CST Training, presented by Jason Bailey

11:30 AM Raffle with Exhibitors

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Lunch on your own; Exhibitors Tear Down

1:00 PM – 4:45 PM Session 6A [4.0 PDH] – Standards of Practice, presented by Jason Bailey and Milton Denny

1:00 PM – 4:45 PM Session 6B [4.0 PDH] – The Sepulga River Investigation: Can You Determine What a River Was Like in 1819? presented by Frank Willis

1:00 PM – 4:30 PM Optional CST Test

5:00 PM – 7:00 PM Possible social activity to be determined. Spouses Welcome!

Total 16.5 PDHs

Session Descriptions

Sessions 1A and 3A: Twenty-Seven Miles of Evidence: The Rapides–Grant Parish Boundary Dispute, Parts 1 and 2

How do you establish a 27-mile parish boundary when the controlling descriptions are difficult, the landscape has changed, the evidence appears to conflict, and moving the line could transfer approximately 12,000 acres—and a major industrial tax base—from one parish to another? In this two-part program, Frank Willis tells the firsthand story of the nationally recognized Rapides–Grant Parish boundary dispute, later featured in POB magazine. Original descriptions, GLO surveys, natural and artificial monuments, river movement, erosion, archaeology, photogrammetry, forest history, tree rings, sediments, historical accounts, and surviving evidence on the ground all became parts of the same puzzle. The case refuses to unfold in a straight line. Long-accepted interpretations begin to collapse, seemingly minor evidence becomes decisive, and the courtroom battle develops through scientific disputes, procedural maneuvers, and human conduct that would be difficult to invent. More than once, attendees may believe they know where the case is headed—only to have the land, the trees, or the historical record force the story in another direction. Presented through animation, historical imagery, maps, reconstructed river movements, field evidence, and a fast-moving trial narrative, this is both a rigorous boundary investigation and a true courtroom drama, with one defensible line at stake.

Session 3B: Best Practices in Drone Surveying - 2026

Dive into the constantly evolving world of drone surveying in 2026, transformed by cutting-edge hardware, advanced photogrammetry, lidar, GNSS processing, AI software, streamlined workflows, and shifting regulations. This session offers best practices for flight operations, data processing, and CAD integration, emphasizing accuracy, speed, and cost optimization. Whether launching a new drone program or seeking fresh updates, you’ll gain the essential tools to stay competitive in a changing market.

Session 3C: Developing Surfaces: Purposes, Types and Selections

In this workshop various methods of creating surface representations from point data will be presented and discussed. The underlying methodologies will be explored, more from the viewpoint of the people who collected the data in the field, rather than a purely theoretical viewpoint. The purposes of different surface representations and the methods of their creation will be explored and contrasted, allowing attendees to make better and more useful selections in the future. The workshop will allow attendees to gain a better understanding of the means by which surfaces may be created, allowing them to make better choices during field data collection.

Session 5A: Catahoula Lake: When Surveying Evidence and the Law Collide

Where is the boundary of a natural lake whose water level rises and falls dramatically—and how can anyone determine where that boundary existed when Louisiana entered the Union in 1812? Questions first uncovered during the Rapides–Grant Parish investigation led Frank Willis back to graduate school, where he devoted nearly five years to advanced study and used Catahoula Lake as the principal study site for his doctoral research. The lake contains nearly every condition that can complicate a water boundary: fluctuating stages, changing vegetation, sediments, historic channels, uncertain physical indicators, conflicting interpretations, and natural features that do not fit neatly within simplified legal definitions. The investigation combined surveying, hydrology, geology, dendrochronology, historical research, GLO evidence, and extensive field observations. In this highly visual presentation, the evidence is allowed to develop before the court’s decision is revealed. Attendees are not simply told what happened; they are placed in the surveyor’s position and allowed to reach their own judgment. Then comes the legal result. The final turn is more than unexpected. It is likely to leave surveyors deeply troubled—and perhaps angry—about what can happen when legal reasoning separates from the physical evidence written in the land and water. Few boundary cases expose more sharply the tension between scientific truth, surveying judgment, and the power of a court to define the law.

Session 6B: The Sepulga River Investigation: Can You Determine What a River Was Like in 1819?

Was the Sepulga River navigable when Alabama entered the Union in 1819? The answer could determine ownership of the riverbed and valuable oil and mineral interests beneath it. Frank Willis led a multidisciplinary investigation with Alabama surveyor Milton Denny, geologists, historians, attorneys, and local river experts along a remote 31-mile reach. Rather than relying only on old maps, vessel descriptions, and competing historical accounts, the team treated the river itself as evidence. Clues preserved in the channel, trees, sediments, rock formations, submerged artifacts, historic climate record, and surrounding land were found, measured, dated, and tested. The presentation follows the expeditions as the team reconstructs the river’s former character. But the evidence does not lead where the familiar story suggests. As one clue begins to confirm another, the investigation turns in a direction so improbable that it would sound invented if the physical evidence were not still there to be seen and tested. This is not merely a technical discussion of navigability. It is an investigative story in which a river preserves its own testimony for two centuries—and forces the surveyor to reconsider what initially appeared obvious.

Additional Session descriptions coming soon.

Speaker Bios

Jason Bailey is President/Principal Surveyor at Bailey Land Group. He has more than 35 years of experience in both military and civilian land surveying. He has performed land surveys all over the world to include a hydrographic survey of the Persian Gulf, a resurvey of Kadena Airfield in Okanawa, Japan, and numerous ALTA/ACSM Land Title, Boundary/Topographic, and Communication Tower Surveys in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee. Mr. Bailey has experience in GPS positioning, flood certifications, construction layout, subdivision platting, mortgage, route, and utility surveys, ROW and easement dedications, and GIS data collection. He currently is responsible for the overall operation of his business that includes all aspects of the surveying process from the initial proposal to the coordination of the field work, processing field data, managing the CADD process, calculating the boundaries, performing the research and delivering the final product.  He is currently the Secretary/Treasurer for ASPLS as well as past president for the society. He serves on several committees within ASPLS including being the chairman of the Professional Practices committee, the GIS committee, the Trig-Star committee and is a member of the Resolutions and By-Laws committee, the Nominating committee and the Ethics committee.

Thomas Brooks is a Professional Surveyor with HGA based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He is licensed 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- 2001) and the Alabama Society of Professional Land Surveyors (ASPLS - 2013). 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, the NSPS PAC, and the Scouting 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.

Logan Campbell is the Founder and CEO of Aerotas, which provides drone data processing for land surveyors and Civil Engineers. He founded Aerotas in 2014 and has since helped thousands of surveyors get the highest quality data out of their drone programs. Prior to founding Aerotas, Logan worked as a statistician in the financial services industry. Logan has an MBA from Harvard Business School and received his undergraduate degree from USC. Logan is a Certified Mapping Scientist with the ASPRS and a CFA Charter holder. As a recognized industry expert, he regularly speaks at survey and drone conferences and writes in numerous land surveying publications.

Milton E. Denny is a registered surveyor in six states, and a veteran of land surveying, aerial mapping and GIS. His special interest has always been in project development and management of firms. He is a past president of the Alabama Society of Professional Land Surveyors, a Fellow in the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping and served for many years on the Board of Direction. Mr. Denny is the author of many manuals dealing with surveying, mapping and GIS. He is a nationally known speaker and lecturer on these subjects and wrote a column called “The Business Side” for a trade magazine for many years. He was instrumental in the starting of a new member organization in the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping called the “Geographic and Land Information Society”.

Dr. Bill Hazelton is a Professor at Troy University in the Geospatial Informatics Department, where he has been working for the past 8 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.

Frank L. Willis, Ph.D., PLS, PE, PG, has practiced land surveying and civil engineering side by side for nearly five decades. He founded his firm in 1981 and has spent his career retracing boundaries, interpreting original records and physical evidence, designing major public works, and investigating difficult questions involving land and water. At LSU, he first earned a degree in zoology, reflecting a lifelong interest in the natural sciences, and immediately returned to earn a second bachelor's degree in civil engineering. That unusual combination became a foundation for the way he approaches difficult boundary problems, bringing biology, geology, hydrology, and the physical evidence of the landscape into work grounded in surveying and engineering. After approximately 25 years in practice, he returned to graduate school and earned a master's degree in engineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Science. His doctoral research addressed the boundaries of natural lakes, with Catahoula Lake as the principal study site. His presentations demonstrate how the surveyor's traditional responsibility to weigh the complete body of evidence can be strengthened by hydrology, geology, dendrochronology, photogrammetry, history, and other disciplines - while remaining grounded in the duty to determine one defensible boundary.