Thanks for the feedback...
Actually, I did read up on the Serial1.available and am familiar with how it works. I am simply avoiding reading the data in the main loop, modular code approach for easier code integration with my teammates... I know that most put setup stuff in the void setup() similar to what I would do in the systemInit() call. This is the way we have it setup in the code for the actual system we are working on. However, there is nothing wrong with it in the void loop(), works just fine to run everything and see it in the serial monitor do to the fact that I don't have a lot of the hardware that is setup or tested in the systemInit, again test purposes. As for the issue I was having "The GPS will print out GPS coordinates when the "if (strncmp(buffer, "$GPRMC",6) == 0)" condition is met. However, there are instances when I get invalid coordinates: ", I was able to correct the problem by using a do, while loop... Just as I predicted, it worked like a charm... Basically, I scan the data until the delimiter I am looking for comes in and then I process the data. The only thing left to do is include a time out in the event no data is being received from the GPS. Tiny GPS library is great, learn a lot from it as well. I just felt this implementation gave me the opportunity to work with the data more thats all... Thanks again!
static void serialGPScomm()
{
//start=millis();
uint32_t tmp;
do
{
readline();
} while (strncmp(buffer, "$GPRMC",6) != 0);
//Check if $GPRMC sentence type
if (strncmp(buffer, "$GPRMC",6) == 0) {
...
}