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.”
Henry Swift
Matt Hood
Surveyor’s Assistant
Education: B.A. Millikin
At Swift since: 2022
Matt Hood remembers well his first day at Swift in February 2022.
“It was really cold, and Henry and I were digging a control point out of this ice that was melting but was still surrounded by snow,” Matt says. “It’s ice-cold water and we’re reaching into it trying to find this 3/8” rebar with a plastic cap while our hands go numb in the water, but we’ve got to keep searching, reaching down there, until we find it.”
It was just another day in the field surveying during an Indiana winter. And Matt had worked for Jim part-time during the summer of his senior year in college.
“I knew from working for him then that physical challenge was going to be a big part of surveying,” Matt says. “I’d been sitting at a desk for 13 years, and I needed the exercise. It was a good change.”
Born and raised in Crawfordsville, Matt attended Crawfordsville High School, where playing saxophone in the bands led him to earn a degree in commercial music at Millikin University. But after 13 years in music marketing for Pinecastle Records in North Carolina and three years in sales at Menard’s in Lafayette, Matt decided it was time for a change.
“I really missed being outside, and I was tired of marketing and making up things,” he says. “In surveying, we’re gathering evidence, finding an answer, and making a difference in people’s lives—contributing to the public good.”
His early days in surveying had their challenges.
“I like to learn,” he says, and the projects he’s completed around the house and the wooden speedboat he built are proof of that. “Still, surveying is a pretty steep learning curve—running the data collector, the GPS, and the survey instrument. But the steeper curve is learning what evidence Jim needs from the field. To help me learn that, Jim had me research the jobs we were beginning and the computer work with drafting, along with the field work. Putting all those together gave me a lot more experience and understanding what to look for. It was the best way to learn.”
He enjoys the variety he finds in surveying.
“One day we’re in the office doing research, the next we’re in the field, then we’re back in the office drafting. Every day is different and new.
“And you get to see places that most people don’t get to—backyards, behind a factory, the corner of a cornfield. You might wade a half-mile through a creek—hopefully it’s a warm day when you’re doing that.”
It’s all part of the work.
“Essentially, we put together a puzzle, but the pieces were made by different people with different tools at different times, and we’re trying to make that all fit together.”
Matt says the difference at Swift Land Consulting is the zeal for getting it right.
“Jim demands a thoroughness that most surveying companies don’t hold themselves to,” he says. “That helps our clients, and it helps us, too. Jim’s not going to let a survey go out until it’s truly done.”
That’s the bottom line for Matt.
“I’d be frustrated working for someone who let things slip through,” he says. “We’re not a huge company—we can afford to take the time to get things right. And though a lot of the work we do may not be looked at closely for maybe 10 years, when that moment comes, the extra time and care we took and Jim’s thoroughness really matter.”