Alan Clifford Royce

In Memorial

Alan Clifford Royce

CA Licensed Land Surveyor (PLS. 5182)
Born: June 29, 1950, Died: November 6, 2008

Alan "Al" Royce passed away peacefully in his home in Brentwood, CA, following a courageous two-year fight with pancreatic cancer. He was 58 years old.

Alan loved his lifetime work as a land surveyor, recently retiring from Kier & Wright Civil Engineers & Surveyors, Inc. and was most happy spending his spare time working on home improvement projects, his photography and playing golf Photo. He is survived by his wife, Karyn; his children, Jennifer and Sean Rangel; grandsons, Aidan and Mason Rangel; his mother, Ellen Royce; and brothers, Ken and Steve Royce.

At Alan’s request, no service was held. Please take a moment to remember Alan and how he touched your life. Called "Uncle Al" by many, his greatest rewards came from helping others through life challenges. The family thanks Hospice of the East Bay for its loving care and support. Bay Area Cremation and Funeral Services of Brentwood provided arrangements.

Alan; a 1968 Viking graduate from Pacific High School in San Leandro, California Photo , started his career in land surveying back in 1969 while employed by the city of Alameda engineering department as a draftsman until 1973 when he joined Murray McCormick Civil Engineers, in Oakland California, a firm which was later purchased by Greiner Engineering, Inc., Alan was initially hired as a survey draftsman, to specifically prepare right of way maps for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District project. Alan was the consummate hand draftsman, a skill in this day and age of computers mostly lost on the land surveying profession. His lettering was so consistent that many people believed that it was a computer generated "hand font". (Add sample map)

Over his 13-year tenure at Greiner, Alan developed his career in land surveying including both fieldwork running a crew as party chief and office work including project management rising to the level of survey supervisor. This accumulated experience along with part-time attendance taking surveying classes at Cabot Collage, the Hayward, CA campus of the South County (of Alameda) Community Collage District, afforded Alan the opportunity to sit for, and pass, the California Land Surveyor’s exam, obtaining a license in 1982.

In 1986 Alan left Greiner to take a position as the office Land Surveyor at Altamont Land Surveyors, Inc., in Livermore and Pleasanton California, initially as a project surveyor and manager and then, after obtaining partial ownership in the firm, served as vice-president as well as serving on the company’s board of directors.

A project of particular remembrance for Alan while at Altamont was for the boundary survey and record of survey (47 pages!) of the Presidio San Francisco for the United States Army Corps of Engineers to be used for the ownership transfer map from the United States Army to the National Park Service which then became a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1994.

In 1994 Alan joined the firm of Kier & Wright Civil Engineers & Surveyors, Inc. of Pleasanton California as a senior licensed land surveyor in the position of project manager until his retirement in 2006. This was when his battle with cancer began. Alan made a brief return to Kier & Wright in 2007 while his cancer seemed to be in remission working on special projects but was forced to again leave to battle the disease.

At the time of his death, Alan was still a member of the California Land Surveyors Association as a corporate member.

Personal remarks:

"I worked with Alan at Altamont Land Surveyors a bunch of years ago. I appreciate what he did to advance Land Surveying as a well-respected professional." Cynthia Marthaler (Concord, CA)

“I first met Alan in June of 1977 as a new college graduate entering the industry full time. This was at the firm of Murray McCormick Civil Engineers, in Oakland California. On my first day the principles of the firm were not there so no one knew I was reporting. After going through the list, Alan was the one sent out to see me. He was taken aback at first and did not know what to do with me, but took me under his wing and started me on my new career filling a neglected stack of deeds almost two feet high! Later I worked in the Engineering department under several engineers and ran the field crews on their projects. Then one day Alan and another surveyor came though the door, unplugged my drafting lamp and my erasure machine, told me to stand back and bring my drafting stool with me. The two of them then proceeded to pick up my drafting table and carry it across the room, out the door then down the hall to the survey annex proclaiming that I was now assigned to the Survey department as I was “too smart to be an engineer!” (My apologies to any engineers reading this!) Our careers were to be intertwined ever since. I left Murray McCormick (later Greiner Engineering) and we went our separate ways until we reunited in 1989 at the firm of Altamont Land Surveyors. In 1994 Alan left Altamont to join the firm of Kier & Wright. In 1996 when Altamont was winding down, Alan appeared at my door to entice me to join him at Kier & Wright, which I did. Throughout our careers we were competitors and allies, mentors to each and teachers to many. Alan enjoyed life to the fullest and was not only just about work. He had many outside interest such as woodworking, golf, photography and spending time with family. Alan and I enjoyed common interest such as photography and science. Many do not know that Alan read physics books for fun. I have enjoyed our camaraderie for over 31 years and will and do miss him a lot. He was a calming factor through out my career and for that I will be forever grateful.” Michael Foley (San Ramon, CA)

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