In 1996 Georg Rothbucher was visiting a customer at a construction site who was facing a difficult problem. Two thousand square meters of concrete had been poured incorrectly for the Finished Floor Level (FFL) of a new building. This surveyor was trying to recover the original reference point used to set the FFL – a chalk mark, pencil line or a nail.

Surveying is continually leveraging new technologies to do the job faster and even more precisely. Through it all, Berntsen is right beside surveyors, providing trusted, innovative products – including our Rothbucher line. These products are designed to streamline surveyor’s work by ensuring that all measuring points represent clear, permanent, and unmistakable records – for boundaries, monitoring, construction, mining, roads, rail lines and more.

Money, Money, Money

Infrastructure is no longer an ignored necessity in the United States. Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed in 2021, our country is making a once-in-a-lifetime investment in its economic backbone to the tune of $1.2 trillion over five years. In 2022, 6,900 specific projects have been launched in 4,000 communities in all 50 states.

Georg wasn’t always a business owner. Back in 1996, he was working for a company that sold construction products and had the opportunity to see the problems surveyors faced on construction sites, particularly issues with Finished Floor Level (FFL).

He says “Back in early 1996, I visited a good customer on a construction site and observed him scraping off plaster from the wall to search for a pencil line that marked the Finished Floor Level.

I was chatting the other day with a colleague from my surveying days, Bob Beilfuss, a surveyor from Germantown, Wisconsin. Since I’m now working for Berntsen, Bob shared some of his favorite stories about the Berntsen products he uses. It was an interesting and informative chat, so I asked him to share his stories with you.