Thomas Jefferson was an accomplished surveyor and mapmaker. He was born April 13, 1743 on his father's plantation of Shadwell located along the Rivanna River near the Blue Ridge Mountains of colonial Virginia.

More than 180 million miles of electrical, telephone, and cable lines crisscross the United States[1]. More and more new developments are “undergrounding” cables to improve aesthetics and improve resilience during intense weather.

Trappers, fur traders and riverman are known for exploring the West and opening it to settlement. Since the founding of  the Army Corps of Engineers in 1802, the Corps has fielded a hard-working, highly trained cadre of surveyor-explorers who were instrumental in opening up the West to immigration.

Walk through many major metropolitan area today, and you’ll see the hallmarks of the future: electric vehicles, Waymos (self-driving cars), charging stations and autonomous delivery robots. But if you ask a City Manager or a Public Works Director what truly makes a city "smart," they won’t point to the gadgetry on the sidewalk. They’ll point to the data buried beneath it.

This week, we recognize a profession that has been instrumental in the growth of our country. Land surveying is an on-going, massive project that has mapped more than 1.5 billion acres of public land since the late 18th century, primarily using the Public Land Survey System (PLSS). During Colonial times, surveyors (including Thomas Jefferson) used the system of metes and bounds, which relied on measuring distances between geographic features such as rocks, trees and so on.  Later on, surveyors used a grid system developed by Jefferson, to map the vast territories west of the original 13 colonies.

In land development, the "Property Line" is a theoretical concept with a very physical requirement. It demands that a specific point on the earth remains fixed, regardless of the environment.

But in many regions - particularly coastal areas, wetlands, or new fill sites - the ground itself fights against this permanence.

We live in the era of the Smart City. Architects design in Revit, Urban Planners simulate traffic flows in ArcGIS, and Engineers build Digital Twins that model every pipe and wire.

But these multi-million dollar models suffer from a critical vulnerability: They assume the ground stands still.

It doesn't.

In modern infrastructure, we talk endlessly about the cloud. We discuss LiDAR point clouds, drone photogrammetry, and real-time GIS updates. It is easy for a VP of Operations or a Chief Engineer to believe that the physical world is becoming secondary to the digital model.

This is a dangerous misconception.

According to legend, the first shrine to Terminus, the Roman god of boundaries, was established by Romulus circa 723 BC at the founding of Rome. Two hundred years later, the shrine was found to be immovable when the first king of Rome wanted to move it to rebuild the Temple of Jupiter

Back in colonial times, land surveying was an essential skill. Under British rule, the land claimed by the Crown belonged to the King. The only way it passed into the hands of other people was through grants or outright sales from Crown to businesses or individuals.

Land surveying has been essential to human life since ancient times.

Back in the 10^th century BCE, just after the last Ice Age ended, surveyors in Gobeki Tepe in Turkey laid out a huge ceremonial site for communal worship. This was literally back in the Stone Age, when humans were still hunting and gathering and hadn’t yet settled down in permanent cities.

One of the models used to train AI is called a recursive loop. It refers to a feedback loop where an AI model generates new data which is then used to further train and improve that same model.  That same concept can help visualize the complex interaction of forces driving the development and adoption of AI itself. Basically, AI is creating demand for data centers, while at the same time, AI is being used to streamline and improve the processes and technology used to build data centers.

The infrastructure world is changing fast. Owners, utilities, environmental groups, campuses, and municipalities are all under increasing pressure to keep assets accurate, connected, compliant, and maintained. Budgets aren’t growing. Workforces aren’t expanding. Yet expectations are rising.

We’ve all been impacted by rising costs over the past few years, and construction projects are no different.  Nevertheless, 2026 is predicted to be a busy year for construction, driven by massive technology and infrastructure projects, such as data centers and transportation construction.

To enjoy the holiday season, it’s essential that everything works properly – from mobile apps to airports to basic utilities – all these systems must work well (and work together) to ensure happy holidays. This time of year, tens of millions of people hit the roads and skies, utility consumption peaks, and the global logistics network runs at maximum capacity.

Why Your Multi-Million Dollar Infrastructure Inventory Fails the Thanksgiving Test

Every facility manager and construction executive knows the panic of the Thanksgiving host: you have 50 ingredients, 20 guests, and a single critical item (like the turkey thermometer or a specific cable spool) is missing. In business, this "missing ingredient" isn't a ruined dinner; it's a multi-million dollar project delay due to untraceable assets in a vast laydown yard or warehouse.

GIS connects location to data – delivering a unique way to visualize and address complex, multi-dimensional challenges. It is also phenomenally versatile and easily integrates with other technologies. Today GIS is experiencing significant growth, expanding across nearly every industry, from urban planning and environmental management to public health and business operations. 

Military land surveyors have been crucial throughout history, from laying the groundwork for national expansion and defense to modern-day roles in targeting and construction. Important figures include presidents like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who started as surveyors, and military engineers like John C. Frémont, who mapped vast territories and borders. Modern military survey roles are vital for reconnaissance, troop movement, and construction projects. 

The origins of land surveying and engineering can be traced back thousands of years to ancient civilizations such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Greeks.