A police uniform serves as a very public reminder that the state vests the individual wearing it with the power of arrest and the use force when necessary. What, if anything, does the “uniform” of the average land surveyor communicate?

Words matter, and as surveyors, our choice of words or interpretation of them can have far-reaching effects.

Those who are heavily invested in a boundary dispute are passionate for many reasons and mistakenly assume that their surveyor of choice will share in and vigorously defend those same passions.

I have long held that the origins of a boundary dispute are misunderstood even by the participants. The cause of many disputes may be nothing more than territorial behavior.