Kevin Higgins, Nevada Sales Rep

Kevin recently joined the Cooper Aerial Team as Director of Business Development for Nevada. Mr. Higgins attended Arizona State University and has been in sales and marketing for the past 15 years. Kevin and his wife Debbie live in Summerlin with their 4 children: Kylie 18, Kacie 13, Kendall 11 and Kade 8. During his spare time, Kevin announces for the Las Vegas 51s and helps coach baseball at the College of Southern Nevada.

On behalf of everyone at Cooper Aerial we would like to welcome Kevin to our team!

Cooper Aerial is proud to announce that we are on call with Mohave County to provide geospatial services. We are very excited for the opportunity and look forward to working with Mohave County for years to come.

Tim Burrows attended the New Mexico Mining Association's Conference September 9 - 11, 2009, at Isleta Casino & Resort Albuquerque, New Mexico. While at the conference Tim had the pleasure of participating in the annual conference golf tournament. Tim and his team took first place.

The conference proved to be a great success, thank you to all of you who visited the Cooper Aerial booth!

Chris Seck, Steve Costin, Tim Burrows, and Jeff Ohm enjoyed a fun, but very hot day on the golf course for Arizona Professional Land Surveys annual summer tournament. Cooper Aerial didn't come close to winning but a good time was had by all. APLS always puts on a fun exciting tournament and we would like to thank all those who were involved with this tournament.

The 21st annual Southern Nevada Chapter's Golf Tournament at Boulder Creek Golf Club was held on August 22nd. Jeff Cooper, Chris Seck, Jeff Ohm, and Kevin Higgins attended the tournament and Kevin's back is still hurting from carrying the team. A big thanks to Robert Carrington and the rest of the surveying community for having us out. Congratulations to Boyd Urie for winning the Cooper sponsored Arizona Cardinals tickets and trip!

Cooper Aerial attended and exhibited at the APWA Statewide conference in Phoenix, AZ. It is always exciting to see familiar faces and meet new ones. The agenda of this conference featured many educational and important sessions and a substantial overview of what is happening in our profession.

Cooper Aerial attended and exhibited at the APWA Nevada Fall Conference held at Harrahs Lake Tahoe. Jeff Ohm and Kevin Higgins would like to thank everyone who stopped by the Cooper booth. We enjoyed visiting with each and every one of you!

We are very excited to announce that we are now storing our Cessna 206 airplane at the Scottsdale Airpark. In addition, we have hired a new flight crew that will be based out of our Phoenix headquarters.

This strategic move was designed to bring more business operations into our main office, improving workflow and productivity while expanding service offerings. Our flight crew will now be completing jobs in California, Texas, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico as well as continued service in Arizona.

"We truly believe that this move will help us better serve the needs of our customers," said Jeff Cooper.

Mike Wong, Pilot

Mike, our new pilot, has been flying for 13 years. Mr. Wong actually flew for Cooper from 2001 to 2008 and rejoined our team in July of 2009. Mike holds both an Airline Transport Pilot License and a Flight Instructor License for single engine, multi engine and instrument planes. Outside of work Mike enjoys hiking, hunting and football.

Luke Messer                            Mike Wong

Luke Messer, Photographer

Our new photographer, Luke, previously worked for Keystone Aerial Surveys Inc. and also joined our team in July of this year. In his free time Luke enjoys fishing, hunting, hiking, camping, jeeping, photography, reading, playing guitar and harmonica, and cooking.

We were recently contracted by Pinto Engineering to provide low level aerial photography and mapping services of the Riegelsville Bridge Suspension Bridge which connects New Jersey and Pennsylvania. With the use of a Bell 206 helicopter hovering less than 250 feet above the bridge deck, we were able to provide incredible high quality imagery for the project. Our own Phil Gershkovich was on site during the flight.

The goal of the project was to map the bridge's suspension cables to the very best accuracy photogrammetry will allow. In this case we were able to map the cables at an accuracy of .05ft.

The Riegelsville Bridge is operated by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission. Built in 1904, to replace a covered bridge which operated from 1835 to 1904, the Riegelsville Bridge is one of the few multi-span continuous cable bridges in the United States.

In order to establish ground control, GPS static baselines were placed on both sides of the river. The contours were successfully compiled at an interval of 0.2', and the horizontal and vertical point accuracy specifications exceeded project requirements. The imagery will be used in a bridge rehabilitation project in order to ensure historical accuracy and structural modernization. Cooper took it a step further by mapping nuts and bolts in addition to the suspension cables to ensure an accuracy of more than 15 times that of a conventional design project.

Phil and the rest of our team truly enjoyed working on this unique project. We would like to thank Brian Taylor, PLS, and Pinto Engineering for allowing us the opportunity to collaborate with their teams, thank you Pinto Engineering!

Read the latest Pennsylvania Society of Land Surveyors Newsletter to learn more about this exciting project.