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An optical instrument may be a surveyor’s best friend on a worksite, but you won’t see one on a typical wedding guest list. That doesn’t mean it can’t make the wedding photo album, though. During their reception on November 9, 2012, Collin Traynor, instrument operator for Eastern Chadrow Associates, Warminster, Pa., and his new bride Caitlin set up the company’s Topcon optical level at the Blair Mill Inn in Horsham, Pa. They headed outside to take some pictures in the gazebo and John Chadrow, co-owner of Eastern Chadrow Associates accompanied them. Chadrow had the idea of having some pictures taken with the equipment. Traynor submitted the images to Facebook, sharing the album with Topcon. In fact, many people have shared their photos with Topcon, many just for the sake of sharing through social media, and some as submission to the Topcon photo contest. The first annual Topcon Positioning Systems/Topcon Europe Positioning "Topcon is Everywhere" photo contest was launched in 2012. In a companion contest, Topcon Precision Agriculture encouraged participants to share photographs that illustrated the "Spirit of Agriculture."
Combined, the two contests received more than 400 entries from 50 countries. Submissions were uploaded to the Topcon Positioning Systems or Topcon Europe Positioning Facebook pages, or emailed. The grand prize winner was Eman Panopio of Singapore and entries receiving four, three and two stars were Nico Schimer, Germany; Cetin Bucan, Turkey; and Daryl Moistner of Alaska, respectively. The results are posted at topconiseverywhere.com and topconspiritofagriculture.com.
Numerous other customers shared photos of themselves and their Topcon equipment on Topcon Positioning Systems’ Facebook page, even after the submission deadline passed in summer 2012.
Traynor’s employer serves Bucks and Montgomery counties in Pennsylvania. The company serves both public- and private-sector clients, including municipalities, water and sewer authorities, development companies, contractors, and individual landowners. Traynor uses the level and other instruments in the field for residential boundary surveys, construction stakeout, level runs for elevation certificates, and topographic surveys for pools and home additions. Over the past six years, since he was 19, Traynor has been using Topcon equipment–the past three for Eastern Chadrow Associates.
Another eye-catching photo of two men working with a Topcon GR-3 rover while partially submerged in a lake was submitted to the Facebook page after the entry deadline by Ing. Gerard Philippe Schneider, who is wearing the headscarf. Schneider, construction engineer for the Unidad Provincial Coordinadora del Agua (UPCA) Water Unit for the provincial government in Formosa, Argentina and an assistant, Aguita Santillan, were studying floodplain topography. Jorge Osvaldo Ferreira, a technician who works with Schneider, took the picture. The UPCA has used Topcon equipment for the past nine years.
The workers were standing in flooded lagoon waters of the Pilcomayo River called Laguna Salada. They and Ferreira routinely do this kind of work in inhospitable places of the province such as the woods, the water, marshes and the Pilcomayo River, according to Schneider. The work requires the men to use various means of transportation, from truck to off-road motorcycles to motorboats and canoes to countless miles of walking in the cold, heat, rain, daylight and darkness.
The flooded lagoon waters from river overflows serve as a reservoir in the event of extreme droughts, which occur often in the province. The studies were conducted in two phases of 10 days each. The two stayed in the location in the photo for 15 minutes. The men were in the water for 10 hours a day over the 20 days and walked along the bottom of the riverbed when the water was too shallow for their small boat.
Topcon plans to hold its second annual contest in July. More information will be available at topconiseverywhere.com and topconspiritofagriculture.com.
A 743Kb PDF of this article as it appeared in the magazine—complete with images—is available by clicking HERE