Rene Cuadrado
10/9/18
“I Want, I Need, I Gotta Have”
(“Daily Request of a Surveyor”)
“Most important thing is that you enter from the bottom, then you work your way at the top”. You know who said that motto. Nicholas Gonzalez. Nicholas Gonzalez is a survey engineer. A survey engineer is an engineer that measures and records the geographic elements of the Earth. As he works as a surveyor, he learned a lot on how to be successful on doing what he does best. He is my father’s cousin, which is how I gain contact with him. We both met at my house on September 9th 2018. He worked a lot throughout his school and working years to get where he is.
Nicholas Gonzalez was educated in an engineering school named Alfred State, the State University of New York College of Technology. This college is in Alfred, Allegany County, New York. This college is one of the eight Colleges of Technology within the SUNY system. Alfred State was his fourth college he attended in his school years. He was educated in Alfred State 8 years. At first, he wasn’t interested in engineering. When he was out of high school, he wanted to become an architect. But he realized that architecture was what everyone wanted to be and he learned that he had to be the best of the best. Architecture could be a very competitive field. So, as he in school and attending internships, he had been interested in engineering.
Nicholas Gonzalez used to have a summer job. He worked at the Boro Land Survey. The Boro Land Survey is a small business located in 353 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY. It was recommended by his father. He had done this job for 3 years. While working at this summer job, he realized that surveying field was unique. Surveying was something he loved for 3 reasons. The reasons why he loved surveying was because of art, math, and working outdoors. There are a lot of responsibilities on surveying. It consists a crew working in the field. The crew has a party chief, an instrument man and a rod man. Due to technology, the rod man position has been eliminated. The reason why was that when Nicholas entered the Boro Land Survey, he was a rod man, which was also called the zero man. That means that a zero man holds the zero end of the measuring tape, which was Nicholas role in this job. The instrument man read the tape and tells the party chief the number he read, which makes the party chief know what to calculate. After a while, he started feeling unimportant because holding the zero end of the measuring tape seem like a dummy position to him. But that feeling changed due to him complaining to his boss about his role as a rod man, but then his boss explained that he has the most important job in the crew. The boss told Nicholas that he keeps the numbers stabled, which means he would know which position is correct when calculating the distance between a project. That’s when he realized that there is an art in science at what they do. That is also when he realized that he wanted to become a survey engineer.
Nicholas Gonzalez’s career is a survey engineer. As I said before, a survey engineer is an engineer that measures and records the geographic elements of the Earth. He runs the survey portion of the job. He got a total of 3 crews underneath him. He sets up his crew and makes sure they have everything the need to get the job done. (Two main portions in survey – boundary survey and construction survey. A boundary survey concentrates on the legal location of a piece of property parcel, while a construction survey concentrates on laying out a building inside the set parcel.) He works for an engineering firm call NY Geomatics. NY Geomatics is a specialty surveying firm with a focus on precise, specialized surveying techniques for projects requiring the highest precision. It is in Sunnyside New Yok, Queens and its owned by Ralph Perez, LS. Nicholas has been with this company since it started and now they have offices in California, New Jersey, and Dominican Republic. The path that got him into this career was from one thing. Golf. Golf was his path to a surveyor because if you look at a golf course, it is set up with boundaries and different elevations which in a survey industry we call topography. In other words, when you are in a golf course, you are serving you surroundings.
When Nicholas is not working, he has some daily routines that helps him release stress because being a survey engineer can be very stressful. The responsibility level on being a surveyor is extremely high. His daily routines would be drinking 5 cups a coffee every day to maybe keep more energized. He also plays golf and goes to the gym to release stress. When you are a surveyor, you must have an outlet to release stress and tension that comes with the job.
When Nicholas is working out in the field, it is required to have has many communications as he can. For example, when he is working with is colleagues, he must text, call, or email them every day to see how the project is going. Also, when he is working for or with his clients, he must email or call them every day to tell them that the project is going fine or going bad. While working on the projects, he using 2 of the most important skills while working on a project. Those skills are reading and writing. A survey engineer needs their reading and writing skills because when they are doing a project, they must read out the plans on how the project is being built. They also must read the deeds, which are verbal explanations of a piece of property. For example, when you start designing a project, you must build a block that covers as a building. Then you must build a lot inside the block. Then you must review or draw out a deed that explains the details on this lot. Then you construct the project and layout the project to have a complete survey. They even read their emails and texts for updates. For writing, a surveyor must write out a report and/or create a presentation about the project, for their colleagues and bosses to understand how their projects stand out.
Nicholas Gonzalez is a very had working survey engineer. He does whatever he must do to get the work done. As I interview him, I asked him, “If I ever want to become a survey engineer, what advice would you give me?”. He said and I quote, “This business has a way to chew you up. It could be stressful. But remember, it is just business, not personal. Start out in the bottom, and work your way up to the top. There are a lot of aspects on being an engineer. Don’t raise expectations. Build yourself up.” He had dealt with that experience and he is still taking his time on building himself up.
In conclusion, Nicholas Gonzalez is a hard-working survey engineer in NY Geometrics. A survey engineer is an engineer that measures and records the geographic elements of the Earth. He has worked throughout his school years and his working years to get where he is now. As he works as a survey engineer, he has learned 2 lifelong lessons. The first lifelong lesson is,
“It is just business, not personal.” The second lifelong lesson is, “Start out in the bottom, and work your way up to the top.” It is very important to know and learn about these types of engineers, architects, scientists, or whatever because they can give you a perspective on how their lives can be what yours could be when you are deciding a career. You must express your skills and experience the working life on the field. That is what Nicholas Gonzalez did. That is how Nicholas Gonzalez became a survey engineer.
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