Labor shortage issues are big news, both on the national stage and within the design services industry. For design firms, these shortages are largely due to long-term declines in the number of STEM students as well as the need to attract a more diverse workforce.

In this episode, we dove a little deeper into the situation for firms in a key segment in the design services industry—surveying. Surveyors perform the initial fieldwork on civil engineering projects and they face some particular workforce constraints related to state licensing and other issues.

To talk about these issues, Joe Romano joined us on the program. Joe is a principal and Director of Surveying and Mapping at Langan, which is a 1,500-person consulting firm with offices worldwide. He is also the Chair of ACEC’s Coalition of Professional Surveyors (COPS).