Delta Land Surveyors marks 40 years

Laura Young
ECB Publishing, Inc.

When Lawrence Dale Rowell returned from serving with the Air Force in Vietnam in the early 1970s, he soon made an educational choice that would impact not only his life, but also his extended family as well as countless businesses, agencies and property owners across North Florida. One of his brothers, Auley Rowell, was employed surveying timberland for Proctor & Gamble, and he suggested that Dale look into this line of work. The University of Florida, he said, had just started a school for surveyors that could be a good opportunity.
Dale followed up and became the third student ever to enroll in the new program. Auley had been the first family member to become a surveyor, and Dale was the next. In 1976, he went to work for Tom Howard's surveying business in Monticello and less than a decade later, in 1983, he started Delta Land Surveyors. The name derives the D from Dale, the E from his daughter Edith and the L from his daughter Liz, with the T and A added to complete the word for the Greek letter Delta, a symbol for change.
The next year, he increased Delta's customer base by buying Tom Howard's business, and his other brother, Randy, joined him in the operation, with offices in both Monticello and Perry. The company grew and grew as they worked on all kinds of projects that took them into plots of farmland, down neighborhood streets, waist-deep in swamps, along coastal property lines, through paper company timberland and across vast stretches of government-owned tracts.
In 2007, the two brothers decided to create separate businesses that would continue to work cooperatively with the same name of Delta Land Surveyors. Randy and the Monticello business focused on projects on one side of the Aucilla River while Dale and the Perry-based business handled projects on the other side of the river.
Randy recalls that in the early days of the business they did their work with a transit, reading the angles with a magnifying glass and measuring distances with a 100-foot steel chain. Today they use robotic instruments and GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) technology to triangulate the measurements from satellites. Through the years, many of their children, nephews, nieces, in-laws and grandchildren have also worked at Delta (some whether they wanted to or not, notes Randy).
“I am proud to say many of them have found surveying to be what they wanted to do as an occupation,” he adds.
About one year ago, Randy passed ownership of Delta Land Surveyors in Monticello to his children: Joe Rowell, Corey Rowell and Kim Rowell Odom. With Kim as one of the partners, Delta Land Surveyors became in part a woman-owned small business, remarkable in a field where only 2.6 percent of surveyors are female. Over the past year under the new generation of owners, the family business has continued to thrive and expand their service area across North Florida and South Georgia.
At the start of 2023, Delta Land Surveyors celebrated 40 years in business, and the two separate companies merged together again into one Delta Land Surveyors business headquartered in Monticello.
Randy reflects, “I have had some real good people that helped us along the way. They are my friends, and I miss working with them. I still consider them as part of our Delta Land Surveyors family. There are a few of us old-timers still here along with many very capable younger surveyors and mappers. I feel that Delta Land Surveyors' successes have come through hard work and support from the local businesses as well as the county commission, city council and school board, who obviously have wanted us to succeed. I have recognized that the local business and leaders' support in us is why we have been able to stay here in Monticello so long. It is truly my blessing to have a family that is interested in carrying on what Dale and I started.”
Neither Randy nor Dale are ready to retire, though, and they continue to work as one of Delta's five Florida Registered Professional Surveyors and Mappers in the family.
Randy's son, Joe, remembers starting at Delta one summer at the age of 16, when he needed gas money for his hand-me-down truck.
“It has been a long road from where I started in 1997,” Joe says, “from being a rodman who gets sent back to the truck for a tree bender to an owner who sends the crews out across North Florida. I love being
in the woods and seeing what our creator has
set in place for us to be good stewards over.
Over the years I have been blessed to see deer, hogs, bears, bugs and all secluded places in North Florida that most have never seen. It takes a special breed to be a land surveyor. We wade in water with snakes, we go through bushes full of ticks, and we seem to attract mosquitoes. It takes hard work, dedication and perseverance to be a good surveyor.”
Corey recalls starting to help out at a very young age, first around the office and later working in the field. Like his brother, he enjoys the variety that every day brings, and he recognizes that his father wanted to instill in them a good work ethic.
Kim is proud to be one of the few women who are registered surveyors, and she also works on the business side of the operation. Over the past year, she has seen Delta Land Surveyors triple in size, including both the workforce and the service area.
“We are now three generations strong,” says Kim, “with land surveying as a family business.”
Some employees have worked so long at Delta Land Surveyors that they are just like family, including Mike McIntosh (38 years at Delta) and Pandora Padgett (with the company for 30 years). Padgett, now a senior survey technician and cad operator, remembers way back when she was in the drafting program at North Florida College that one day a Delta employee came to one of her classes and said they needed help. Although she had been planning to go into architecture, she started helping out at Delta and has been there ever since. In her current position as one of three cad operators at Delta, Padgett works with the data that surveyors send in from the field, draws it up digitally and checks it against information in the property deeds. Then she generates the survey plots that are the company's primary work product.
“It's very interesting work,” Padgett says. “I like doing the research. There's always something different.”
A land surveying company naturally builds working relationships with area realtors, planning officials, title companies and those in the property appraiser's office. One recent project of community interest was surveying the height of the Jefferson County Courthouse in order to establish a limit on how high other buildings in the area could be.
Property Appraiser Angela Gray remarks that Delta has always worked with her office in identifying property boundaries, especially in difficult areas.
“They have a wealth of knowledge about Department of Transportation right of ways and highways that is a big help,” says Gray. “We don't always have access to those maps.”
Delta also works closely with Leslie Wilkinson of North Florida Abstract & Title, who regularly orders surveys from Delta in connection with title searches for real estate sales.
“I just know I can call on them if I have a question about a legal description or a survey,” says Wilkinson. “I couldn't do my work without them. They are always there for me.”
Scott McPherson, a local investor, developer, entrepreneur and restorer, says that working with Kim and the folks at Delta has been amazing: “When I started in Monticello, I made a commitment to use everyone local we could find. Delta was one of the first contacts, and I have zero regrets. They come through every time.”
Everyone involved with Delta Land Surveyors over the past four decades hopes that the company will continue to serve the community for many years to come.
Randy says, “Looking back, it has been my pleasure surveying in Jefferson County and the surrounding community. It is especially pleasing to remember and recognize the people we have worked for and those who have helped along the way. My hope is that Delta Land Surveyors LLC would be able to grow along with the county and still be here forty years later. It hasn't always been easy, but looking back it's been fun.”