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When Mike Dickerson, PLS, started working at WithersRavenel in 1992, the company employed less than 30 people. Mike was the 44th person to ever work for the firm.
Today, as Mike retires with more than 32 years of experience at the firm, he has held various roles. These include licensed professional surveyor, manager, senior technical advisor, and member of the Board of Directors. Now, the firm has more than 460 employees. He’s worked on hundreds of projects across the state. To say he has seen a lot would be an understatement.
For Mike, the biggest change during that time is the technology that has revolutionized the field of surveying.
“Today we have access to lots of high-tech equipment,” he said. “We used to cut grid lines for topo. Now we’ve got the UAS platform with LiDAR sensors. The technology advances have just been amazing.”
Mike is the son of a surveyor, and he still has old field books showing his father’s survey work in the West Virginia coal mines. He remembers work as a rodman during the start of his own surveying career in the 1980s. He admits he was skeptical about some of the technological changes in the industry.
But he became a believer, as the new equipment and technology save time. They get accurate data to clients quicker than ever. “I didn’t have a lot of confidence in it, and the initial investment was overwhelming. But it’s been a game-changer. We couldn’t do the amount of work we do now. We don’t have enough manpower to do what our UAS group can do with the drones in a much shorter time.”
The legacy Mike and other longtime WithersRavenel employees will leave across the Triangle is not lost on him though. He enjoys that when he is driving around Cary, Raleigh, and other places with his wife, Lisa, he can point out many developments. These are sites that he has worked on while at the firm.
He has fond memories of working on projects with Preston and other developers in the region. In particular, he remembers golf course projects and communities such as Prestonwood, Crooked Creek, River Ridge, and Wakefield Plantation.
Mike will also miss the friends he has made at WithersRavenel. “I’ll miss the people I’ve worked with long-term, the camaraderie,” he said. “The daily back-and-forth with the guys in geomatics and the other groups, too.”
In retirement, Mike looks forward to doing more fishing and traveling around the country with his wife; the couple will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary later this year. He has a son, Tyler, who lives in Clayton.
WithersRavenel congratulates Mike on his retirement and wishes him well!
