Officials overseeing land surveyors in the U.S. Virgin Islands suspended the territory’s public cadastral officer’s license for misconduct, years after allegations were first raised.
Public Surveyor Wayne Callwood, whose job is to ensure private surveyors’ work match public records, was barred from using his license for six months after the Virgin Islands Board of Architects, Engineers, and Land Surveyors found him guilty Jan. 15 of using another surveyor’s name on official documents.
In 2022, St. John surveyor Larry Best conducted a topographical review of Estate Hard Labour’s Parcel 13Ba-3. Best said he found boundary posts placed by Callwood that bore another surveyor’s markings. The survey was also wildly inaccurate — off by 30 feet in some places, Best said.
Callwood used Francisco Nadal’s engineering seal instead of his own to avoid detection in what would be a clear conflict of interest, Best alleged. Similar allegations were made going back to at least 2019 — including surveys in Carolina and Estate Chocolate Hole.
The cadastral board wasn’t permitted to determine the accuracy of surveys but did have oversight of surveyors’ professional conduct, John Woods, chair of the cadastral board, said in an email Saturday.
Nadal, who has a professional engineering license but not a surveyor license, acknowledged he had allowed Callwood to use his seal but was not sure about the work itself. He told the board he stood behind Callwood’s work and signed off on it but had not reviewed the sites, the surveys, or Callwood’s field notes. Nadal also said he was unsure of Callwood’s credentials to do survey work.
Callwood, the government officer who approves surveys, has degrees in civil engineering and surveying. He told the board he kept a copy of Nadal’s seal on his computer and acknowledged using it for surveys.
He told the Source in 2024 that he didn’t consider it wrong and that he would never betray his government duties. What he did privately was separate, Callwood reasoned. He likened it to a taxi driver asking another driver to take his fare.
Callwood said he kept a second Nadal seal created by a cadastral student that Callwood was training. This seal left the letter “n” off Francisco Nadal’s first name, according to official records of the incident. Nadal said he had been confused when answering questions, having not realized there were two seals used.
The board found Callwood and Nadal guilty of “engaging in activities constituting misconduct in the practice of engineering” by failing to “maintain the integrity and high standards of skill and practice of engineering profession.”
In addition to the six-month license suspension for both men, they must complete an eight-hour ethics course before the suspension is lifted. They’ll also be on a yearlong probationary period after the six-month suspension. Future violations of using another person’s license could result in license revocation.
Callwood was allowed to continue his duties as public surveyor while his license was suspended, Wood said, because Virgin Islands law did not require the position to have an active surveying and engineering license.
Woods declined to say if he thought Callwood’s and Nadal’s actions had risen to the level of criminality.
“I believe the Attorney General’s Office is aware of the order,” Woods said.
It was not clear what, if any, compensation Callwood received for the survey work done in Nadal’s name. Callwood makes $73,645 annually as the public surveyor, according to the Division of Personnel.
