Land surveyors play ‘crucial’ role in engineering process for successful construction projects

This story first appeared in Engineers Week 2026, an annual special section that showcases a variety of local engineering topics to celebrate all that engineers contribute to our world.

Any construction project starts with a solid foundation — but what comes before the foundation?

“We start with survey, and we end with survey,” said Tim Wallace, transportation engineer for McClure Engineering’s Cedar Rapids office. “Getting a good understanding of what’s out in the field is obviously crucial for us as designers. Making sure we know what’s out there, whether it’s elevations or what’s underground with utilities.”

Wallace plans and manages highway improvement projects for the firm’s Eastern Iowa government clients. But before his work starts, Alec Fuller’s team is on the scene.

“You’re doing a lot of boots-on-the-ground survey work out in the field,” said Fuller, McClure’s Cedar Rapids survey team leader.

Measuring distances, elevations and angles to map land, surveying was a natural for technology’s dramatic advances over recent decades. Where field work once meant several workers equipped with transits, compasses, chains — not to mention the exacting math needed to capture and interpret their measurements — today’s process has evolved.

“We went from guys out with steel tapes and transits and taking a direction and pulling the tape in that direction to using robotic total stations,” Fuller said.

Fuller earned an engineering degree before studying for his surveyor’s certification, issued by the Iowa Professional Licensing Board.

“I took a different route than most people,” he said. “The experience part is the technical background.”

Yesterday’s transit is now essentially a handheld computer with a laser rangefinder.

“We have a laser reflecting off that prism giving you distance data and elevation wherever that person is standing,” Fuller said. “We can operate as a one-person crew if necessary.”

The surveyor’s toolbox also includes global positioning systems and drones equipped with scanners and light detection and ranging, or LIDAR.

“We have drone technology that helps us capture data in a widespread fashion when we don’t want to walk the whole (parcel),” Fuller said. He noted most smartphones’ GPS is accurate to about a meter.

“The GPS we have will crunch down to the centimeter range, so you’re getting really accurate data vertically and horizontally with some pretty fun tools,” he said.

Back at the office, engineers such as Wallace have new tools in the form of design software.

“We take that (survey data), then we have our design standards for the scope of the project, whether it be a street reconstruction, an overlay, a roundabout,” he said. “We take that and we fit the project to the site conditions. We take that design and make sure the concept fits out in the field, and that gives the contractor direction.”

Software that creates detailed, three-dimensional renderings helps government clients and their citizens better understand a project.

“When you’ve worked in the engineering field so long, you don’t realize that when you’re trying to explain to someone what your job is,” Wallace said. “They don’t always understand. Being able to provide those pictures is pretty invaluable to the public.”

That’s helping McClure design a replacement for Burlington’s Cascade Bridge, built in 1896 to connect the downtown business district to Crapo Park. The span was closed to vehicle traffic in 2010 and pedestrians in 2018.

“There were some questions on how we could maybe preserve some of the existing historic bridge,” Fuller said. “We were able to gather data from all different angles around this bridge and create a point-cloud model. Engineers in the office could drive around and look at that data without being in the field. It’s easier to explain something, having a picture.”

Enthusiastic adopters of new technology, surveyors and engineers are cautiously implementing artificial intelligence software.

“We’re looking at ways we can implement it, but we want to be cautious because some of the information is not always true,” Wallace said. “We have a technology team we’ve created in the past year, because we recognize that if you don’t find a way to integrate AI, you’re going to be left behind. It changes so fast, and the efficiencies that it can create are pretty incredible. All of that to say, you have to be cautious, you can’t just take it as-is.”

“There’s things it does well, but there’s a lot of shortcomings,” Fuller added.

McClure surveyors and engineers are also working on resurfacing Eight Street NE and Nassau Street NE in Cedar Rapids, along with a new roundabout in Coralville — the bread-and-butter projects that keep the rest of us moving.

“As time progresses, stuff deteriorates and falls apart, so there’s always going to be a need for our profession,” Wallace said. “The public sector has been very steady with work, and we don’t see it slowing down.”