In surveying and in life, it’s all about the people beside you.
In May 2005, I stepped through the door at 698 Tower Road in Plainfield, Indiana. I had just graduated from Vincennes University the Friday before and was both nervous and excited to begin my new job as a Survey Rodman.
The office at that time was pieced together and full of early morning energy. Survey crews were packing up gear and heading out to tackle the day’s boundary surveys and construction layouts. It was 7 a.m. on a Monday, and I was walking straight into the heart of the action.
By then, Jeff Yeary had already been a crew chief for two years. One of my first jobs was working alongside him, staking grades for an expanded parking lot at Plainfield Christian Church. I knew how to crunch the numbers—and Jeff knew how to build things.
Everything shifted in 2008. Layoffs were happening across the survey industry. By the end of 2009, our survey department had dropped from nearly 20 employees to just a handful. And even we were working only four days a week. In January and February, Jeff Yeary and Will Hogstrum spent 50–60 hours a week surveying anchor bolts in Edwardsport. I processed their fieldwork weekly. They stayed near Edwardsport until Thursday afternoons.
On those Thursdays, we’d gather—Jeff, Will, Joe Miller, and me—around a poker table, using former employees’ business cards as currency, joking (nervously) about who might be next.
A couple of years later, Jeff and I were eating lunch in the work truck at Sugar Grove Assisted Living on the west side of Plainfield. We were finishing up fieldwork for an ALTA survey (a beefed-up boundary survey often required for commercial closings). Sitting there, Jeff looked over and said, “I’m going to ask Tina to marry me.” That same year, he married Tina—and I married Lindsey. Life was moving forward.
In early 2014, I trained Jeff to do construction calculations in CAD. Our team was growing again, and it was time for him to transition from crew chief to field crew manager. The shift from field to office is one of the toughest in the surveying profession—and Jeff knocked it out of the park. That October, he and Tina also welcomed their daughter. It was a big year in every way.
Jeff started at Banning 22 years ago. I hit my 20-year mark this May. That’s two decades—five days a week—side by side. We’ve laughed, disagreed, grown, and weathered tough seasons together. And in an era when the average American job tenure has dropped to a 20-year low, what we’ve built means even more.
Commitment, longevity, and friendship still matter.
And 20 years doesn’t feel like nearly enough.
~ Jon Polson