Qualifications and Motivation

Written by Paul F. Hahn

Created on Sunday, 01 January 2012 20:33

Editors Intro:

Back in early 2007, I was visiting Paul Hahn at his home north of Denver, Colorado. Paul and I go way back to his management days at Nikon, Carl Zeiss and Geotronics while at the time I was working in sales for a North Carolina based surveying instrument dealer.  In 2003, I had migrated from 17+ years of predominantly land surveying total stations, robotics and GPS sales to 2D and 3D machine control system sales. Paul and I were discussing this “newer” market  and the possibility of Machine Control Magazine. After partnering with Cheves Media and Spatial Media, I had contacted Paul again to see if he would be interested in being associate editor, primarily because of his background and our past working relationship. I thought it would be a good idea to write about Paul’s qualifications since this has never really been discussed. I asked Paul to write in his own words, his background and motivation for his contributions.
-Randy Noland
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Paul F. Hahn


I started out in the precise positioning industry as a land and construction surveyor in 1978.   I found that construction surveying interested me the most. In fact, I spent so much time on construction sites that the Washington State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors denied my application to sit for the Professional Land Surveyor licensing exam, saying I needed to spend more time doing pure land surveying. This really frustrated me and I started to re-think my career path decisions.  Luckily, in 1986 a job opened up with a well respected surveying instrument manufacturer and I applied for the position.  As luck would have it, I was accepted and became the Midwest Regional Sales Manager for Carl Zeiss, Inc. Carl Zeiss was a fantastic company, well known for their Ni2 automatic levels and early total stations.  I learned a lot about total stations, data collection and computer interfaces.  Although this learning curve was sometimes painful, my knowledge of both technologies and applications grew dramatically.

The next step in my new career came in 1989 when I was hired by Nikon’s Survey Instrument Division as their National Sales and Marketing Manager.  This organization was more focused on construction instruments and I learned a great deal about lasers and construction-grade total stations.  Most importantly, I was tasked with modifying data collection and application software for the U.S. market.  Again, I found myself back on construction sites and my application knowledge grew significantly.

My most impactful job change happened in 1991 when I accepted the position of Sales and Marketing Manager with Geotronics of North America.  These guys were crazy as a fox. Geotronics was a Swedish company and the manufacturer of Geodimeter total stations.  They had many industry-firsts including the EDM and the robotic total station; very smart folks when it came to high-end technology and applications.  Many of the top people were former surveyors and the robotic total station was a real game changer. This was a product that many surveyors and contractors had long dreamed of.  However, most users thought the Swedes had just gotten into the vodka again and this was a solution that the broad market would never accept. The market acceptance was slow at first and, as usual, led by the visionaries and early adopters. Upon hearing the price, some even laughed in my face, but those who owned the systems were very happy and making more money than ever before.  (The guys that laughed at us probably own one or more now.) This is when I first learned about the Technology Adoption Life Cycle, which has to do with market acceptance of paradigm-shifting technology. It states that not all of the eventual users will rush to embrace new technology at the same time.  I became challenged and fascinated in how I could to help companies make decisions that were good for them, even when their conservative nature caused them to doubt the wisdom of taking such a leap of faith. I was with this company for twelve years, although the name changed to Spectra Precision which was later acquired by Trimble Navigation.  I heard so many success stories over those years and when I came to Trimble I heard similar stories about the industry’s adoption of RTK GPS.  What once started as novelty became an important, ever-day component in the technology tool box of both surveyors and contractors. It may come as a surprise to some of you, but the earliest adopters of robotic total stations were contractors.  They do the math faster than some of the other user groups.

When Geotronics’ parent company purchased Spectra Physics my exposure to construction instruments grew again.  The positioning division within the company (Spectra Physics Laserplane) was mostly focused on construction and precise agriculture solutions-including machine control. Eventually the name for the positioning instruments groups within the companies was changed to Spectra Precision.  Now the total station/GPS guys and the laser guys were on the same team.  This was my first exposure to machine control.  Even though some products were still on the bleeding-edge, it was obvious to me that this was going to be huge.  The benefits were going to be staggering.  I got my first hands-on experience when a team was formed to create a total station-based 3D machine control solution for motor graders called Blade Pro 3D. As with today’s modern solutions, it included a positioning sensor (a special Geodimeter robotic total station), data preparation (Terramodel software) and machine control components mounted on the grader. I was lucky enough to be included in some of the early product development decision-making and my knowledge of machine control greatly increased along the way. Blade Pro 3D was a big success without too many hiccups. Early adopters of the system reaped huge benefits.

Eventually, Spectra Precision was acquired by Trimble Navigation.  Although my job title became Marketing Manager I needed to stay involved with applications and product capabilities.  A lot more GPS and machine control expertise was added to the newly combined companies and the products and solutions became more robust and extended to more and more machines.  Again I was fortunate to be involved with cutting edge (pardon the pun) solutions.

After leaving Trimble in 2003 and starting my own consulting company, I continued to stay involved in the precise positioning industry and also got to work with Topcon and Leica dealers doing marketing projects.  This is when I got a chance to learn about their approaches and solutions for machine control.  It was during this time that Randy Noland approached me about the concept that turned out to be Machine Control Magazine. When I thought about all the people I had let down by not convincing them that the robotic total station was here to stay; I wanted in.  In those early days of the robotic total station, all of us felt somewhat evangelistic.  We knew how much the product had helped their owners succeed and benefit financially. When a prospective buyer decided not to purchase we felt that we had failed them.  

As an impartial observer of this machine control revolution, I can state that all of the manufacturers’ systems work well.  They differentiate themselves by their different approaches and technical solutions.  All of their customers are benefiting from their investment in the technology.  However, just like in the early days of robotic total stations and RTK, many contractors are still skeptical about manufacturers’ claims regarding the benefits of machine control and the resulting return on investment.  In the years to come those doubts and concerns will be distant memory.  Machine control will be a common sight on small and large construction projects.  Large and small companies will benefit financially and that discussion will be over.   

So I am motivated to share what I know and learn about machine control and positioning.  I have seen the doubters become promoters and seen them rewarded. Hopefully, the other contributors at Machine Control Magazine and I can supply answers to your questions about adaptation, learning curves, gotcha’s and the evolution of the technology.