From majoring in psychology to becoming a Project Coordinator, Mick P. has worked hard and had great mentorship along the way. Mick’s How’d I Get Here story shows how important it is to be open to new things and surround yourself with people that will push you to learn more.
Getting Started
Mick’s first job at Summit was in High School. We will preface this by saying Mick is VERY close with the CEO. He started out doing survey work with his dad back when Summit was Callemyn–Parker. Mick continued to do survey work during the summer throughout his college years but was not sold on a profession in engineering or survey quite yet.
The College Years
During his college years he started out majoring in psychology at Campbell University. After two years of taking general college courses and beginning his psychology track, he had his first of many conversations with his dad about career growth and potential. They discussed the amount of time and money it would take to make it in psychology and Mick took his dad’s advice and switched his major from psychology to Business Administration.
Mick finished his 4 years and then had to take one additional year of classes. During his last year of college, he worked as an NCDOT (North Carolina Department of Transportation) Technician during the day and took classes at Campbell’s Satellite Campus at night. After graduating from college Mick applied for a full-time position with NCDOT as a Tech 1 and moved from a temporary employee to a full-time employee with NCDOT.
Working with NCDOT is what really got Mick interested in the survey and engineering professions. He worked with NCDOT for 2 years and then a position opened in Summit’s survey department.
Surveying with Summit, the Economic Shift, and NCDOT
Mick started working as a surveyor under Edmund Purcell and Bill McCarthy. While working with Bill and Edmund he learned a lot about boundary surveys and topographic surveys, he also met a lot of different people and has a lot of good stories from this time.
After two years the economy took a downturn and Mick left Summit to go back to NCDOT as at Tech II and stayed there for about eight years under the mentorship of Charles Timberlake.
During his last two years with NCDOT, Mick got promoted to the DD&C (Division of Design and Construction). This is where he really started to love working with CAD and MicroStation.
Mick would complete surveys and then come back and use MicroStation with those surveys. Sunil Patel, who is now a Senior Design Engineer with NCDOT, and David Davis, who is a Transportation and GIS Engineer, taught him how to use MicroStation and were extremely helpful in this position. Also, during this time, Mick became interested in drafting.
Return to Summit
After 8 years with NCDOT, Mick got a text from his dad (and Summit’s CEO) saying “ Don’t you think it’s time to come back to work for Summit?”
Mick returned to Summit and this time he started in the Land Development department. He had never used AutoCAD or Civil 3D, but he did not let that stop him! His dad’s advice was to learn as much as he could, and he was going to do just that.
The first project he worked on was Bedford Hills, a subdivision in Burlington, NC, and John Collins served as a key mentor for him while learning Civil 3D. Mick worked in the Land Development Department for 1 year under Chad Abbott and during this time he worked closely with Randy Hall who had an enormous impact on how Mick learned and wanted to continue to learn about the technologies that we use at Summit.
A Year Later
After a year in Land Development, Mick got a phone call from Bobby Downes, Greg Fuller and Mike Braswell who were all part of the ITS/Signals department at Summit. They knew of Mick’s experience with MicroStation, and they needed a drafter for ITS/Signals.
A month later he had a job working with the Signals group and was with that department for five years working on fiber design, signal designs and doing drone work. Mick also assisted the Emerging Markets Branch with a large contract that had him drawing over 200 sites throughout NC, GA, and SC to install 5G communication poles in the span of over a year and a half.
Mick also started to help the survey department use scanning technology. Thomas T. was the only one that had used it and the team needed someone else to learn the software as well. He was excited and willing to do it and he started using the Leica 3D scanner to create point clouds and surface meshes for NCDOT to analyze drainage issues.
Mick really enjoyed the technology aspects of surveying and engineering and even obtained a drone license and started working on ways we could use drone photography for our projects.
Here and Now
Most recently, Mick has started a position as a Project Coordinator/Designer back in the Land Development Department. From Surveyor to Project coordinator Mick’s dad has provided a lot of insight for him and has helped him gain access to the knowledge he needs for his position. He plans to pursue his PLS license in the future, and we have full confidence that he will do that and more! While at college, Mick never expected to be in the position he is in now but is grateful for the mentorship and experience he has received to get him to where he is today.