Featured Member - Viktor Stergarsek, PLS

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Viktor Stergarsek. I was born and raised in Zagreb, the capital city of Croatia. I studied on the Zagreb Faculty of Geodesy to get my Bachelors in Geodesy and Geoinformatics. I moved to the United States in late 2016 to marry my long-term long-distance girlfriend (now wife of 9 years) and start my surveying career in the Pittsburgh, PA area. I have been honing my craft and learning more about the wonderful world of surveying every day. This culminated in me getting my Professional Land Surveyor license in March of 2025.

What is the most unique project you've worked on, and why?

Two projects come to mind. One of them was an electric utility work project that involved surveying the busy streets of Pittsburgh to collect above-ground and below-ground data that would then be used by the client to design a route for new underground utility lines. My work involved everything from being in the field to coordinating with utilities and the client.

The other project is an orphan well plugging project for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) that is happening in the east side of the state. This is a complex project that involves many teams other than just survey and has helped me learn more about what is possible with new technologies and how to best collaborate with other professions to get a job done safely and within budget.

Did you have a mentor? If so, how has it affected your career?

I have had many mentors during my career. All of them have played an important part in me becoming the professional I am today. I have been very fortunate to have had great bosses who wanted to share their knowledge. I hope to do my part in mentoring and teaching others as I progress through my career. ‘Every person you meet is an opportunity to learn something’ is a motto I stand behind.

What advice can you give to other young surveyors? What do you see as the top benefits of going into the surveying profession?

You are wanted and you are needed! With there being less avenues to get a surveying related degree and an increasing average age for a licensed land surveyor in PA (and the rest of the states for that matter), we are presented with both a challenge and an opportunity. Soon there will be more work than we can handle and I believe we can use this to advocate for our profession and elevate its importance in the minds of our clients and the public. The great thing about land surveying is the variety of avenues you can take. You can focus on being in the field and doing construction stakeout, you could be an office guy who processes the field crew data and prepares the data they need to do their work, or you could be someone who does a bit of everything. Then there are options in terms of the type of jobs: ALTA surveys, construction, monitoring, drone flights, terrestrial scanning, etc. The options are ever increasing in the fast-paced world we live in!

Tell us an interesting or funny surveying story.

A few years back, I was in the field doing topo with my party chief at the time. We were close to a farm and found one of the ducklings. It had gotten separated from its mother and started following me. We were able to reunite him with his mom, but not before he helped us topo the field next to the farm. Took this photo to commemorate our little helper.

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