Who is That CAD Girl?

My name is Jeremy Taylor, a practicing North Carolina Professional Land Surveyor. I began my career in 1993 after graduating from Central Piedmont Community College with an Associate’s Degree in Civil Engineering. While in school, I found the handful of required surveying classes intriguing and fun. So after graduation, I decided to take a job as a rodman to see if surveying was for me. Three years later and with another Associate’s Degree in Surveying under my belt, I became licensed. I’m still not sure I found my “true calling”, but I found a career that I really enjoy….most of the time.

After bouncing around North Carolina working for various small to medium sized firms, I landed in the Raleigh area in 1998. I was hired by a small engineering firm to start and manage a survey department. I left that firm in 2006 to join the ranks of the self-employed. A year into business, I kept wondering, “Why didn’t I do this 10 years ago?” Two years into business and with the economy going south, I wondered, “What have I done!”

One of the good things that came from my decision to become self-employed was an introduction to Carlson Software. Throughout my career, I had used various data collectors and data collection software (TDS, SMI, C&G). All drafting and calculations were done exclusively with Autodesk Land Desktop, with an occasional foray into Microstation. All along, I kept thinking that it sure would be nice to have a little more cohesiveness in getting data from field-to-office and vice versa. I had read good things about Carlson’s products so I decided to give them a shot. I purchased a Carlson Explorer 600+ data collector running the latest version of SurvCE and a copy of Carlson Survey for drafting and calculations. A month into using their products, I knew someone finally got it right.

In the late spring of 2010, I purchased one of Carlson’s latest data collectors, the Surveyor+. I knew what to expect from Carlson and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Durable, fast and a nice, fat keyboard. Oh, and did I mention scalable? I recently upgraded it to include their new GPS RTK engine. You know the saying, “Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better…”

I had a conversation with Jennifer several weeks ago and she mentioned an intriguing opportunity. She’s been considering expanding That CAD Girl’s business to include sales and support of Carlson’s hardware and data collection software. And while she’s an expert in all things CAD, she was looking for some assistance with demos and training for the field-orientated products. While I wouldn’t exactly call myself an expert, I use Carlson’s hardware and software on a daily basis. We thought, who better to showcase their products than an actual customer.