Andy Sikes has been a hands-on practitioner his entire career. He has read the equipment and procedure manuals and performed the technical tasks involved with all the procedures he later came to supervise. His first-hand experience has afforded him broad knowledge and deep understanding of surveying practices.
Mr. Sikes was introduced to surveying at an early age by his father, who once directed the placement of an offshore drilling platform using an intersection technique. He was taught how to run levels and keep notes before leaving high school. At Texas A&M University, he took more classes in surveying than any other engineering practice area. He was mentored by noted surveyors of the twentieth century, including Robert Turpin, Davide Knowles, Plinty Gail, Johnnie Ingram, and Ken Gold. He also studied the history of surveying in Texas, including the lectures of Curtis Brown and Ted Madson and the legal opinions of George Washington Smyth.
Mr. Sikes has performed surveys to locate obstructions to aerial navigation in every state along the Eastern seaboard, and in the central United States from Texas to Michigan. Locally, he supervised the placement of hundreds of City of Houston control monuments and led thousands of surveys to identify the location of tens of thousands of acres of land. He also oversaw boundary and topographic surveys of hundreds of miles of bayous and rights-of-way, including over one hundred miles of the Brazos River. He has surveyed existing conditions and staked new work in the largest and most complicated chemical plants in the nation.
As a member of the Texas Board of Professional Land Surveyors, Mr. Sikes contributed to the Minimum Standards of Practice for Land Surveying (in some cases providing the only draft of individual rules). As a representative of the TBPLS to the National Council of Examiners of Engineers and Surveyors, Mr. Sikes authored exam questions used on the nationally promulgated surveying exam required for surveyor registration.
Andy Sikes is considered an expert on legal matters associated with land boundary locations and titles. He was one of the major contributors to the development of boundary construction rules adopted by the Texas Board of Professional Land Surveying. Mr. Sikes has provided expert witness and consultation of boundary location issues in Texas courts, working with such noted attorneys as Fred M. Lange, Frank Heard, and Richard Spencer. Mr. Sikes has presented evidence and testimony in court or by deposition in more than 20 cases concerning boundary location, easement locations, access to rights-of-way, and drainage. He has also helped prove and defend the work of other surveyors in identifying the location of boundary lines and limits of occupation.