On Technology, with Kevin Woeste, CEO

In a recent conversation with McSteen leadership—Molly Woeste, President; Kevin Woeste, CEO; and Maureen Feller, COO—there was discussion about internal changes made necessary due to the expansion of the company’s service area. The expansion included the opening of a new location in Indianapolis, Indiana, and expanding services to 24 counties across this new state. As a whole, McSteen now offers land services throughout all 88 counties of Ohio, in addition to those Indiana counties. 

With all of these changes internally with McSteen and the service area expansion, the next logical question is, what role does technology play in all of this? According to Kevin Woeste, who guides the company’s focus, vision, and direction concerning technology, the survey industry has spent the last 10 years going from handwritten field notes to pretty much exclusively using iPads, iPhones, and GPSs. “The fact is, we think we’re at a turning point in the industry where we’re going to get away from even that and start to use new scanning technology.” 

The cycle of technology and the products hitting the market are moving faster and faster, with a massive movement in the industry towards the digital twin movement in which they’re trying to capture everything that’s real on Earth into a digital environment. “And with that movement coming into the surveying industry, we’re trying to figure out which products we can use to enhance our Mortgage Locations | SLRs, Boundary Surveys, and ALTAs.” 

On a recent episode of the AEC Engineering and Technology Podcast with Nick Heim, P.E., Kevin Woeste shares his insight on how he sees the ancient profession of land surveying evolving through technology. Kevin began his career in finance, working on the trading floor to becoming a licensed land surveyor in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, as one of the owners of McSteen Land Surveyors. This unusual career path, he says, “brought a new perspective on surveying and a little more forward-thinking than others in the industry.” 

This innovative, technology-minded spirit has McSteen primed to be a true leader in the industry. “We’re just not scared to try things. We know our core values. We know what we are offering to our clients. We know what we won’t bend on.  And within that framework, we’ll try anything, and we’ll see if it works.” 

Now, Kevin is taking his passion for surveying and technology and focusing on the larger mission of helping surveying companies nationwide grow. This has led to the development of One MC Solutions, a stand-alone company that develops training programs, cutting-edge tools, and streamlined workflows to bring new talent into the field and support surveyors in working more effectively. CEO, Matt Chimes, has been brought in to lead One MC Solutions and bring this vision to life.  

The fact is that land surveying has evolved from requiring large multi-person crews to using robotic systems, laser scanners, and advanced GPS tools, making data collection faster and more accessible. These advancements are now paving the way for land surveying technology like SLAM, photogrammetry, and digital twins, which streamline processes, improve precision, and lower costs. It’s expected that the next major development in land surveying will involve the integration of tools like on-device AI models and real-time satellite data to simplify data processing.

At McSteen, we are securers of commercial and residential real estate. That’s who we are. We do that through surveying. And how we do that today is through the surveying methods that we’ve been using for years. And how we do that tomorrow is on us to decide and navigate together as a team by testing new technologies and always staying on the cutting edge of what’s to come. 

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