Professional Land Surveyor, Alex Toldi, Joins PennTerra
In June, PennTerra Engineering welcomed Alex Toldi, a Professional Land Surveyor (P.L.S.) to their team. Now with 30 professionals, PennTerra specializes in land development and offers services in land surveying, land planning, environmental design, and site engineering.
“PennTerra is centrally located and I get to learn skills that I can’t elsewhere,” Toldi shared about his decision to join the firm.
“Alex is a great addition to our team and his skills will help continue to grow our survey department,” added John Sepp, P.E., President of PennTerra.
Born in Clymer and a Bellefonte graduate, Toldi started working before settling on a profession and continuing his education at the Pennsylvania College of Technology.
“I like the outdoors and I don’t mind math,” Toldi noted in selecting surveying as his career track. “Although the data collector does a lot of the math for you nowadays.”
After earning his Associate of Applied Science Degree in Land Surveying, Toldi became a Surveyor in Training (S.I.T.) in 2010 after passing the Fundamentals of Surveying test. Then, in 2016, he obtained his PLS license.
“I want to prepare for my future,” Toldi added when discussing his career’s trajectory. Obtaining his PLS was a key step in that preparation.
He matched that mindset with diverse work experiences at the EADS Group and Borton-Lawson. Travelling from Somerset to Bethlehem, Toldi crisscrossed the Commonwealth while working on projects for natural gas companies like UGI Utilities and Spectra Energy.
After working closely with the natural gas industry, he has a greater respect for safety standards and safety wear. “The craziest thing I saw…,” Toldi can regale his new teammates with many tales.
Toldi’s experience and skills will have him working in the field, but also in the office. An outdoorsman at heart, there is a common theme in his ideal workday.
“The perfect day at work would be out on a large tract of land, looking for property corners,” Toldi daydreams. “In the Spring, you get to find deer antler sheds. In the Summer, the berries are ripe. In the Fall, it’s nice because the colors change. In the Winter, it depends where you are.”
In fact, one of his most interesting assignments checked a couple of those boxes.
“I was working on a project for the Mellon Family and was on a huge tract of land – 30,000 acres. We had plotted the deeds the previous Winter and were now out there to scout it,” he recalls. “In this one draw, there were blackberries everywhere. I found some of the best sheds on that property.”
When he’s not working, Toldi enjoys getting outdoors. He trout fishes and hunts – deer and bear. And he’s also an avid reader, especially of military and American history.
“David McCullough’s Johnstown Flood: The Incredible Story Behind One of the Most Devastating Disasters America Has Ever Known, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914,” Toldi lists some of his recent favorites. “The Last of the Doughboys and Edmund Morris’ Theodore Roosevelt trilogy.”
After briefly working at PennTerra in 2010, Toldi and his colleagues – old and new – are glad to be back together again.
To learn more about this employee-owned company, or to join the team, please visit PennTerra.com.
