Jim Swift, founder
M.S. in Geomatics, School of Civil Engineering
Purdue University
B.A. History
St. Olaf College
One April morning early in his surveying career, Jim Swift was kneeling to find a rebar marker just north of I-74 near U.S. 231 when something on the ground caught his eye.
It was the kind of experience, he says, that the French would call a “moment charniere”—a defining moment.
“As I brushed away the dirt I saw wildflowers in that dark Indiana soil, different shades of green in the grass,” he says. “It was a gorgeous morning, there was the smell of spring and a hint of mist was hanging in the air beneath that deep blue sky.”
Jim had traveled through much of the U.S., including a summer working in Yellowstone National Park and months riding his bicycle from the coast of Maine through the Deep South. He’d stood in some of the most beautiful places in the country and taken in some of its grandest vistas.
But on that spring day in west central Indiana, Jim says none of those places had anything on his home ground. “I realized everything I had been looking for about being connected to the land and everything good about being in the great outdoors could be found right here in front of me, standing on this ground. And that’s the way I perceive surveying today.”
Being a surveyor also merges many of Jim’s keenest interests—mapping, math, history, civil engineering, solving problems, and getting to know people—into a single vocation.
He finds the work immensely rewarding.
“Surveying gives you a puzzle based on objects you actually find. Some of them have been there for more than 100 years, some are much more recent. But it’s never some esoteric, made-up problem; it’s a real world puzzle.
“What we find makes a difference in people’s lives. It matters.”