This website was established to facilitate the understanding of Highway Rights-of-Way in Alaska and to provide easier access to some archival materials that are not readily available. The archives represent a collection of reference resources that I have either collected or authored over my nearly 50-year career as a land surveyor and right-of-way professional in Alaska. I told my daughter that I view this website as kind of a "virtual headstone", but in a positive way. Bureaucrats, such as I have been over most of my career, are memorialized with the thousands of documents carrying their signature that remain in the public record. With this website, I hope to leave something a little more useful to the next group of right-of-way researchers.
But first, a little background... I am likely one of the few people who can attribute his career as a surveyor to rock and roll. I was a member of a Fairbanks garage band during my senior year at Monroe High school in Fairbanks. Upon graduation in 1971, my parents moved to their next civil service assignment in Buffalo, NY. As the band was doing well playing school and teen club dances and we wanted to continue playing during the summer months, it was suggested that I could stay with the family of Steve, the lead guitarist, and then move to Buffalo and pursue college. Steve's older brother Jack was a surveyor with the Department of Highways (DOH). In the summer evenings we would toss a Frisbee in the street and he would tell me what a great job he had as a surveyor. He pointed out that all I would need to secure a similar position would be to take the Elementary Surveying class at the University of Alaska in the coming school year. I did take the class, although with barely a passing grade. In the summer of 1972, I presented myself to the Fairbanks office of DOH and then found my next hurdle. Given the year and my music background, of course, I had shoulder length hair. First, I had to gain the approval of the lady who accepted the DOH employment applications. On her desk were a stack of notices titled in large letters, "Dear Kid". The notices suggested that If I wanted a job, I might need a new attitude. Apparently, to some, my hair length was a possible indicator of my attitude. I promptly went downtown, got a haircut and upon return to the DOH offices, got my start with highways. My first assignment, however, was counting truckloads of gravel on, of course, "Bennett" road. The surveying and right-of-way experience came later.
The adjacent image has me running a K&E Paragon transit for DOH in the summer of 1973. I worked four seasons with the Department before moving to the private sector after the end of the 1975 season. Between 1971 and 1974, I accrued 2 years-worth of credits in the Civil Engineering program at UAF. Preferring the surveying option, I joined the Associates in Survey Technology program at Anchorage Community College and graduated in 1978. Then I worked for a variety of Anchorage and Fairbanks consultants on a project or seasonal basis including subdivision development in Anchorage, state cadastral surveys out of Fairbanks, the NW Natural Gas Line preliminary surveys between Galbraith Lake and Fairbanks and a couple of years in the Prudhoe and Kuparuk oil fields.
I received my PLS (6278) in March of 1984 shortly after completing my only out of state surveying job. I was building my house at 10-mile Chena Hot Springs Road in 1983 and was unable to get it plumbed and wired for occupancy before winter set in. My wife Lisa and I embarked on a road trip down the west coast and then turned left at San Diego and made our way to Dallas. There was plenty of work available for surveyors in Dallas but the second day we were there it snowed and that pretty much ruined my vision of cactus, tumbleweed and Texas. So, we headed back to San Diego and stopped in Yuma, Arizona for 3 months to work for a local surveyor/engineer. Prior to and continuing after I received my PLS, I was an active member of the Alaska Society of Professional Land Surveyors which included a stint as ASPLS Statewide president in 1995. After criticizing the ASPLS Standards of Practice (SOP) manual, I found that this meant that I had volunteered to produce the next edition. I was SOP manual Chairman from 1993-2005. This assignment expanded into developing and managing the first ASPLS website. For my Society involvement, in 1999, I received the award as ASPLS Surveyor of the Year.
In my early surveying years, my understanding of rights-of-way was limited to dedications for the creation of legal access as a part of the subdivision process or identifying the existing legal access as a apart of a boundary retracement survey. It wasn't until I joined R&M Engineering Consultants in Fairbanks that the depth of ROW research became apparent. R&M had won the DOT&PF contract for what was then known as the "Geist Road Extension" projects and ultimately was renamed the Johansen Expressway and Illinois Street projects. I worked for R&M from September of 1985 to October of 1986. Just prior to joining R&M I also received my appointment as a U.S. Deputy Mineral Surveyor. My interest in mining surveys was due to my relationship with several old Fairbanks mining families which included a few months working for Dan Eagan at Alaska Gold Company, the successor to the Fairbanks Exploration Co. that built and ran many of the large gold dredges in the State. Unfortunately, my mineral surveyor career was shortened by the 1994 federal moratorium on patent surveys and as a result I only completed a single USMS assignment. With the new found interest and experience I received at R&M, I then accepted the position as the "ROW Engineer" for the Northern Region Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (DOT&PF) Right-of-Way section in October of 1986.
The ROW Engineering unit developed ROW acquisition plans for airports and highways, prepared title reports, contracted for surveying & mapping services and supported the acquisition and property management units. I was the first "ROW Engineer" to be hired where a license as a Professional Land Surveyor was required. The ROW Engineer label was a misnomer but as surveys and ROW mapping had previously been performed by engineers and engineering technicians, it was difficult to dismiss. So, while we carried the label of "engineer", I commenced to fill all new positions within the unit with licensed land surveyors or those who had land surveying experience.
I spent the next 13 years as the ROW Engineering Supervisor and then another 14 years as Regional Right of Way Chief. During this time, I learned that rights-of-way consisted of a variety of interests that were created by a variety of authorities. Within a highway corridor, the interests would vary, the widths would vary and location alone could be a significant challenge. I found that ROW may be based on federal public land orders, RS-2477 based trail & section line easements, "'47 Act" patent reservations", State section line easements, Title 23 & FLPMA Title V ROW grants, Alaska DNR ROW by permit/ILMA/ILMT, statutory & common law dedications, public prescriptive easements, negotiated acquisitions and a few others. Admittedly, this was a lot to digest. They say that you will learn a lot more about your area of expertise once you try to teach it to others. Teaching requires that you explain every detail and question those areas where maybe the subject matter was not as clear as you thought it was. When I started at DOT&PF ROW, I was encouraged to join the International Right of Way Association (IRWA). I then pursued and obtained their professional designation as Senior Member/Right of Way Association (SR/WA) in 1989. In 1990, Daniel Beardsley, SR/WA, Esq. suggested that I consider instructing courses for IRWA. I was then and continue to be now a dedicated introvert. Oddly, while I try to avoid speaking in front of people, once I get started, I find that I have a difficult time stopping. At that time and due to Dan's extensive ROW experience, he instructed many of the IRWA courses in Alaska. Unwilling to take "no" for an answer, Dan got me started and between 1990 and 2017 I instructed the IRWA Engineering and Property Description courses along with the Principles of Land Acquisition course.
Along with the standard IRWA courses, I participated in several educational seminars where I would present on a variety of ROW research issues. The most memorable of these was when Dan invited me to join him and P.J. "Jay" Sullivan, SR/WA in presenting a seminar titled "Access Law and Issues Affecting Public and Private Lands in Alaska". We split our duties in that Jay would present on RS-2477 and ANCSA 17(b) Easements, Dan would present on Alaska Easement Law and case law relating to other types of ROW and I would present on the history and research of Section Line Easements and Public Land Order ROW. We lost Jay in 2012 and then Dan passed January of 2021. A lot of right-of-way knowledge went with them. After Jay's passing, Dan and I continued to present the seminar with the last one held in February of 2016 in Anchorage.
In a parallel course with the IRWA seminars, I attended most of the annual Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conferences (ASMC) held during my career. As a part of the conference, I presented ROW research short courses along with other professionals or presented papers on various ROW and boundary surveying projects. The short course presentations and background research represents a large part of this website. As a result of my ASMC activities, in 2016, I was inducted in to the Conference Hall of Fame.
Upon my retirement from DOT&PF in May of 2014, I joined the Fairbanks office of R&M Consultants, Inc. At R&M I worked with Karen F. Tilton, PLS, SR/WA, CFedS and Charlie Parr, SR/WA in the Right-of-Way Services Unit. The work included research, ROW acquisition and permitting projects for state and local governments along with ROW research in anticipation of litigation. Expert witness reports and testimony were provided for both the state and private parties. Although it is not my intention for this website to generate more assignments, I have included this link to my Expert Witness CV, should a small but interesting case pop up. My R&M projects included research & development of complex ROW mapping for acquisition; research & reporting related to riparian issues within a private subdivision; riparian apportionment and boundary conflicts; merger of title as it relates to DNR lands and DOT&PF material sites; Small Tract patent reservations; RS-2477 ROW through mining claims; section line easements over ANCSA lands based on protracted surveys; RS-2477 trail ROW over ANCSA lands; highway ROW scope of use over ANCSA lands; interpretation of reciprocal easements between the US Forest Service and the State of Alaska; lot boundary conflict due to incorrect POB within a subdivision not monumented by the original surveyor; interpretation of the Dalton Highway ROW; and existing ROW research for municipal water and gas distribution systems.
The group of "ROW Nerds", those whose interest went to the historical research and understanding of the effect of obscure right-of-way issues was always small. Unfortunately, it appears to be growing smaller. I am hoping that this website will stimulate that interest in others and provide materials that will give them a jump start in their research. In an email regarding my testimony on a case, the state Assistant Attorney General made reference to my ROW knowledge of many "recondite" issues of federal land law. The Merriam-Webster definition of "recondite" is "difficult or impossible for one of ordinary understanding of knowledge to comprehend". For most folks, the better definition of "recondite" is information so obscure and meaningless to everyday life that no one really wants to know it. Oh, well...
