Maya McFadden Photo
Zack Weingart gets to surveying work on Grand Avenue.
Zack Weingart layered up in long johns, cargo pants, a T‑shirt, thermal shirt, sweatshirt, coat, thick gloves, and a furry winter hat Tuesday morning and set up a tripod outside the parking lot by Fair Haven Community Health Care on Grand Avenue.
By day Weingart, 26, is a professional land surveyor. By night he is a musician with a dream to put his college political science degree to use.
Weingart, who lives in New Haven, is a surveyor for Godfrey Hoffman Hodge. In between setting up for work, he demystified the common question of what kind of work is happening by people (like him) often seen on the side of the road in reflective safety jackets with hefty tripod equipment that can sometimes be mistaken for a large camera.
He offered that explanation during a conversation on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s“LoveBabz LoveTalk” program, as he set up a “total station” at the entrance of the Fair Haven center parking lot while his colleague set up another station at the other end of the property.
Weingart’s station sat on a tripod, using a laser to take measurements called “shots” and recording the distances from several specific points of reference to later create a site plan. (The work is “related to a landscape design study we are undertaking to determine the best approach to maximize surface parking at 374 Grand Ave.,” reported Fair Haven Health CEO Suzanne P. Lagarde.)
Weingart has been a surveyor on and off since high school in 2014 and then on college breaks. He graduated from the University of Connecticut with a major in political science.
Despite working full-time as a surveyor, Weingart has a long-term interest in putting his interest in history and international politics to use.
“Someday I’d really like to do something with that” degree, he said.
He also is a guitarist that has been playing blues and rock music for the past 16 years.
Weingart estimated that the Tuesday surveying in the windy 30 degree weather would take two hours.
After leaving the site Weingart said he plans to continue his work on a computer by “play[ing] connect the dots” with the gathered measurements to create a map of the site.
Click on the above to watch the full conversation with land surveyor Zack Weingart on the "Word on the Street" segment of WNHH FM's "LoveBabz LoveTalk" program.