Early Meetings with Delegates

I have recently begun communicating with county delegates and have had a great experience. It has given me an opportunity to share with them, at least in part, a small picture of what the Surveyor's Office is all about. I have enjoyed getting to know people, interacting with them, and appreciate the time they have spent speaking with me. Thank you.

Running for political office has been a stimulating yet humbling experience. In fact, this whole political process has been very educational. Through this process I have reflected over the many experiences I've had while performing the functions of the Office. I have had the opportunity to meet and work with many great people, enjoy both success and failures, and gain a depth of knowledge.

I love surveying. I have had many great, and not so great, experiences while out in the field. Let me share with you one of these “not so great” experiences. I was with a couple of co-workers, sitting in a metal shack with no windows, on top of Mount Timpanogas. We were doing County GPS work on a Government triangulation station. We had too much equipment to pack up in one trip so we first backpacked all of our surveying equipment to the top, leaving our sleeping gear below in the saddle. As night was settling in, we were so exhausted that none of us wanted to hike back down to get our sleeping gear. Because there was little concern about the weather-it was the middle of July and no storms in the forecast-we figured a nice night under the stars would work great. Boy were we wrong. As night fell the wind started to pick up, clouds rolled in, and it started to rain. We were ill equipped, with little warm clothing and a “windowless metal shack.” Lightning was hitting around us and the winds were blowing rain in. I have never spent a more miserable night in my life. I remember trying to keep our minds occupied by inventing games such as, “how many words start with the letters x, y, and z?” Periodically, we would take turns leaving this now muddy, dirt floored shack to make sure our surveying equipment hadn't blown off of the ridge top. I distinctly remember touching the surveying equipment several times that night and getting "zapped" with all of the static electricity in the air from the lightening close by. I guess that’s what you get when you rely solely on the weather man.