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D-6's Ruiz earns distinguished service award

Rayce Ruiz, D-6 land surveyor, received the 2014 Distinguished Service Award from the Idaho Society of Professional Land Surveyors this spring.

"On behalf of the Board of Governors of the Idaho Society of Professional Land Surveyors, I am honored to inform you that you have been selected to receive our 2014 Distinguished Service Award," said ISPLS President Nathan J. Dang.

ISPLS honored Ruiz at its 2014 conference in Pocatello in March. Ruiz is a 27-year employee of District 6, where he performs boundary surveys of public right of way and private property for project development.

Ruiz represents ITD in the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) Height Modernization Program, helping Idaho keep current on federal survey programs. He served as an agreement administrator for the Idaho Geodetic Advisor Program and is ITD's contact with the geodetic coordinator at Idaho State University (ISU).

Over the years, Ruiz installed five continuous operating reference stations and currently consults with the Idaho Real Time Network. He administered contracts with seven professional land surveyors last year and was lead surveyor for four major interchanges on U.S. 20 north of Idaho Falls and for several bridges in eastern Idaho.

In collaboration with ITD and ISU officials, Ruiz coordinated ITD funding for ISU to establish GPS Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) at ISU, the university Idaho Falls Center and Snake River High School in Blackfoot. This helped ISU students and local surveyors perform GPS surveys without needing to set extra GPS base stations, thus saving time and money.

CORS provide Global Navigation Satellite System data, consisting of carrier phase and code range measurements, in support of three-dimensional positioning, meteorology, space weather and geophysical applications throughout the United States, its territories and some foreign countries.

NGS, which is an office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Ocean Service, manages the CORS network.

The surveyor received the ISPLS 2005 Surveyor of the Year Award. He obtained his professional land surveyor license in January 1998. He has been a member of ISPLS since 1990. Ruiz was the eastern section director and an ISPLS board member between 2003-2012.

Criteria for selecting candidates for the annual ISPLS Distinguished Service Award include a minimum of 10 years of competent surveying and completing work under challenging conditions.