About
Mammoth Survey Co. was founded by Zach Hassler, LS in 2021.
After 14 combined years of working as a survey manager for local firm Performance Engineering and regional firm DOWL (previously HKM), Zach started Mammoth Survey Co. with the goal to provide quality professional surveying combined with personal and efficient service. Some of our project highlights to date include:
Serving as the lead technical writer for developing the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) survey manual revision
Performing the ALTA and design survey for the new Billings Costco store
Providing aerial imagery and basemapping for designing rural water facilities, evaluating facility improvements, subdivision preapplications, and permitting maps from rural Wyoming to Whitefish to Miles City.
Providing construction staking for 32nd St. W. corridor improvements from Gabel Rd. to King Ave. in Billings; a UPS distribution facility and Airport Fuel Tank site in Bozeman; and improvements to the Town Pump in Miles City
Providing numerous residential survey services for projects that are deemed too small for larger firms.
Our current office is located in the Americlean building at 1111 Maggie Ln. in Billings.
Where we’re from, where we’re going.
I started Mammoth Survey Co. in 2021 after 13 years in various roles a respected regional engineering firm.
I grew up in the Big Horn Basin in Garland, Wyoming, where the sign now reads POP 115 ELEV 4257. I went to Powell High School and then Northwest College and finally the University of Montana in Missoula where I got undergrad degrees in history and forestry.
After my wife and I moved our young family to Billings in 2007, I took a job with HKM Engineering (later absorbed by DOWL) as a temporary summer survey helper. They kept me on after that summer, encouraged me to get some formal survey education through the University of Wyoming via remote learning, and after a few years promoted me to survey manager. I had the chance to lead the survey effort on several big local projects, including Laurel-Rockvale, the Billings Bypass design surveys, the Signal Peak mine surface facilities construction, and over 400 miles of bathymetric river mapping across the state of Montana.
In the spring of 2021, I decided I wanted to try starting my own business. I spent early 2021 getting insured and equipped and worked on some big projects I’m proud of, including staking the ~4,500’ corridor rebuild along 32nd St. W. from King Ave. W. to Gabel Rd. in Billings. I made my first part-time hire in late summer to help with staking, and she turned out to be pretty good at mapping utilities too. At the end of the year I got to do a fun deformation/monitoring survey of an industrial malt kiln in Great Falls with a longtime friend in the engineering/architecture community.
Not everything went according to plan. I missed out on a few different office spaces I was hoping to lease, which has kept the Mammoth global headquarters sequestered in my daughter’s old bedroom for the foreseeable future. It’s a lesson I’ve learned in starting this new venture: the plan now will not be the plan six months from now.
It’s now nine months since I started Mammoth, and I’m proud to have the best tools and software I’ve used since I started surveying, including a new Trimble X7 laser scanner, which I’m hoping will keep me and my staff out of traffic and help us pursue new types of work like process piping, forensics, historic preservation, and structural as-builts. We’re ready to roll for the 2022 season with potentially a three-person crew to operate GPS, total station, drone, and laser scanner all in (theoretical) harmony.
-ZH, Spring 2022
