Our Africa Land Surveyors Group has a new moderator and discussion leader.  Allow me to introduce to you the ultra talented Rolita Rode la Cock of South Africa. As a surveying technician and surveying teacher in South Africa, Rolita has been involved with the surveying industry on many levels, including working for the Surveyor Generals of Africa from 1986-1992.  We caught up to Rolita and had a chance to learn more about her history and interesting career as a professional land surveyor and this is what we learned.

In South Africa, surveyors have to register with a professional body called Plato and you can find me there under my surname of CRomhout under the technicians.  At times it can be said with confidence that we survey even harder than the proffesional land surveyors, as many just sit in the office and send the technicians to do the actual field work....LOL ... thats the way the cookie crumbles over here..

I qualified in 1989 with a National diploma in Surveying (learn more about that here) at the then, Cape Technikon.  I then worked for the surveyor generals office from 1986 till 1992

Then i made history as the first hydrographer and first female in the field of hydrographic surveys ( see SA shipping news & fishing industry review of August 1992 pg 15). During this time I was still Rolita Rode and working for Pornet Dredging Services in the port of Durban.

From there I found husband No. 1 and changed my surname to Cromhout and we relocated to East Londen in the eastern Cape province in 1997, here i worked as survey technician for the municipality doing various land based surveys.

I then moved to Cape Town and stared working for the Cape Technikon as survey technician in Aug 1999, they have merged with Pentech and the name changed to CPUT (Cape Peninsula University of Technology).

I am currently still employed by them, and my name changed to Rolita Rode La cock during this time.  I completed my Bachelors of Technology degree in surveying in 2010 at CPUT.

I have co-authored  3 conference papers the first was for HELTASA in 2009 in Johannesburg, the second was this year at the AfricaGeo conference in Cape Town and the 3rd one must still be presented at ICEBE conference in cape town between the 21-22 Nov 2011.

I am also an external moderator for UNISA.  I have also completed my teachers development program this year at CPUT.

If you have any questions or ideas for the Africa Surveyors Support Group, you can get in touch with Rolita via her profile on Land Surveyors United or through twitter at @The_Rola