Bay Design Group, Inc. relocated in early July to the former EVB building on Route 17, Glenns. The business, which provides land surveying and other services, most recently had been located in the Gloucester Business Park, White Marsh, for eight years.
President Gordon Jones of Middlesex County said that BDG decided to relocate to Glenns to be more central to its primary Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula service areas. The company offers residential and commercial services, Jones said, including land surveying, land planning and site layout, civil engineering and infrastructure design, environmental assessments, and construction survey and oversight inspection.
Among some of its more recent projects have been survey and engineering support for Page Middle School at White Marsh and the York River Crossing Shopping Center expansion at Hayes, a BDG fact sheet said, as well as the new West Marine in Deltaville, the Syd Thrift Athletic Complex being designed at Middlesex High School in Saluda, the Courthouse Players’ building in Mathews County, and the White Stone Volunteer Fire Department expansion.
Principals in the firm are Jones, a licensed surveyor; vice president Jamie Pruett of West Point, a licensed surveyor, and senior engineer Ben Burton of Northumberland County, a professional engineer. They head a staff of 12 local professionals, including registered land surveyors and professional engineers.
Jones and Burton said the surveying industry has changed quite a bit in recent years as technology has become much improved. Although some of the work can now be done by a single person, they said, they often assign two-member crews to handle jobs, especially in more remote areas, for safety reasons.
While GPS technology works well in many cases, Jones said, surveyors can better calculate lot and boundary lines with ground instruments in heavily wooded areas.
Chuck Dawson of Mathews, who founded the business in 1974, retired six years ago. Dawson, with three associates, traded as C.F. Dawson, Surveyor, and later expanded and became Dawson, Phillips, Jones and Associates. The latter company merged with Caskie Engineering of Saluda in 1996 to become Bay Design Group.
Jones said several members of BDG use their professional talents to help local boards: Jones is a member of the Middlesex Planning Commission, Pruett serves on the West Point Planning Commission, licensed surveyor Jim Leigh is on the Gloucester Board of Zoning Appeals, Burton serves on the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, and Dawson serves on the Mathews Planning Commission.