Vincent Claire Voss

SLS, ALS
Commission #228
(1979.07.05)

Vincent (Vince) Claire Voss was born 1945 in Marshall, a small Saskatchewan town where he would live out his childhood and teenage years. Shortly after high school, Vince took a job tinsmithing, and it was while working that he happened to spot a surveyor with an exceptionally good tan-the tan that would change his life. Impressed, the young Vince asked the man about the line of work that afforded him so much time in the sun, and was told: "Go see Henry Knitter at Midwest Surveys." And so he did.

After working a year with Midwest as a chainman, Vince decided that his hunch about surveying work had been correct, and moved to pursue it further. He enrolled in the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology's two-year Surveying Technology course, graduating in 1970. Immediately after, Vince took a job with Stewart Weir & Co., a surveying and engineering company in Edmonton, where he was articled to Hugh Pritchard. He received his Alberta Land Surveyor's commission in 1976, and shortly afterwards became a junior partner in the company.

Vince was now doing the kind of work he wanted to do, but the demands of being constantly in the field limited the time he could spend with his wife, Fay, whom he had married in 1968. When the opportunity arose to take a less demanding job at Stewart Weir's Lloydminster office, he therefore happily accepted.

Work in the new location called for an SLS commission, and so Vince set out toward obtaining one. He stayed on with Stewart Weir & Co. for seven more years after receiving his new commission in 1979, until in 1986 another tempting opportunity appeared: a chance to go independent. That year, Vince and two colleagues founded Interprovincial Surveys in Lloydminster.

The next 15 years were productive ones for Vince and Interprovincial, but by the turn of the 21st century Vince was ready to begin easing out of the burdens of management. In 2001, he reached a deal with his friend Wes Jamieson of Tri-City Surveys to sell his share in Interprovincial to Tri-City. Vince stayed on as an employee with the company, but now enjoyed the freedom to devote more time to himself and to his family. Over the next several years, Vince's former partners were also bought out, until Interprovincial Surveys became a full branch of Tri-City Surveys.

Vince continues his work with Interprovincial Surveys today. His children, Tori and Lonnie, have moved off and are now raising families of their own. This leaves Vince with time to pursue his own interests, including golf and other leisure activities at his family's Turtle Lake cabin, and winter trips to visit his wife's parents in Arizona.

Vince lives in Lloydminster, Alberta with his wife, Fay, and an impressive tan.