PLSO Oregon Surveyor Nov/Dec 2019

6 Vol. 42, No. 6 The Oregon Surveyor | That’s a Wrap Time to Celebrate the Year of the Rat From the PLSO Office Aimee McAuliffe PLSO Exec. Secretary Our coming year is The Year of the Rat in Chinese culture. Now, if you’re not up on the zodiac, you might not think this sounds very auspicious. However, rats are considered a sign of wealth and prosperity. They are clever, tricky, and tactical animals, with many ideas, keen vision and remarkable problem-solving skills. T hat’s a wrap! The end of 2019 has come, and it has been a busy year. As we have settled in for a little holiday hibernation prior to poking our heads out for the January conference, let me be one of hopefully many to say— may your holidays bring all the warmth, love, friendship, family and general good cheer that you’ve been working so hard towards. To mark the close of our year, let’s cele- brate some of its highlights: • Hosted a successful conference in Eugene that provided 18 PDH’s, opportunities to meet vendors face-to-face and network with your professional peers. • Raised $22,000 at the Education & Outreach Auction, which went toward our Scholarship Fund and Outreach Activities. Our last state- ment from the Oregon Community Foundation noted that we had over $257,000 accruing interest for annual awards to future surveyors. • The Scholarship Committee awarded $18,000 to students for the 2019–2020 school year. The committee also worked on clarifying and expanding current scholarship programs to include part-time students working towards becoming a land surveyor. To check out our scholarship program, please be sure to visit PLSO.org for more information. • Increased and refined our online presence —PLSO.org is looking more modern than ever before. Now we need to consistently update the information so we can boost our search engine ranking for the public and profession alike. • Represented the land surveying profession at various career and college fairs throughout the state. Thank you to our many dedicated volunteers, who set-up booths and promoted land surveying to their community members.