Carpe Geo Evangelist at Applied Geographics, Inc.
Presentation: Carpe Geo and Parvus Momentum
In this highly personal presentation, Bill shared stories of his career journey that highlight “seizing the opportunity” and finding satisfaction in the rich profession of GIS.
Bill is a seasoned GIS professional with nearly 34 years of experience. Upon completion of his MA in Geography at Michigan State University in 1984, he started his career at the New York State Department of Transportation, which at that time was the home of the statewide mapping program. HIs initial work involved converting the mapping program from photo-mechanical to state-of-the-art digital production, in preparation for color printing, publication, and sale of 1:24,000 scale quadrangles, county base maps, the NYS atlas, and other maps. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, he and his team also led one of the largest civilian GIS deployments of that era, serving more than 1,000 users in 11 regional DOT offices. Since then, he rose through the GIS ranks in New York State government, culminating in being named New York’s first Geographic Information Officer in 2014. He retired from state service in 2016 and spent two years leading GIS program development in Washington, DC for the Universal Services Administrative Company (USAC), which is responsible for nationwide broadband support programs on behalf of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In April of 2018, Bill joined Applied Geographics, Inc where he is applying his carpe geo philosophy of building trust through collaboration, of effecting fundamental change through thoughtful investment, and of consistent attention to excellence, as AppGeo’s carpe geo evangelist.
Director at U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Aviation Services
Presentation: The Democratization of the 3rd Dimension – Keys to Success in the Drone Revolution
Visionary, results oriented senior executive with experience developing and leading diverse teams to unparalleled accomplishment of complex company objectives in fast-paced, cost constrained, multilateral environments.
Mark L. Bathrick directs a nationwide aviation services business for the U.S Department of the Interior (DOI), which manages over 500 million acres of public land across the United States and its territories (about 1 in every 5 acres). In his current role, he oversees the safe operation of over 1,200 contracted and government-owned manned and unmanned aircraft across a complex range of business applications. Mark has over 30 years’ experience in the development, testing, acquisition, operations, and management unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Without additional management funding or personnel, Mark built DOI’s drone program into one second in size only to the Department of Defense and a leader in transparency, innovation, and measurable results. Under Mark’s guidance, DOI has successfully flown over 12,000 drone flights across more than 25 different applications in nearly every State, accomplishing missions in 1/7th the time and at 1/10th the cost of traditional methods. Mark’s leadership in innovative drone applications and management has been widely recognized. In 2017, the Commercial Drone Alliance’s selected him for its “Industry Heroes” award as the End-User Innovator of the Year, the Partnership for Public Service selected him as a finalist for the 2018 Samuel J Heyman Service to America Medals, and he was recently selected by Commercial UAV News as one of the Top 7 Drone Visionaries in the surveying and mapping commercial market.
Prior to his current senior executive position, Mark completed a career as a decorated, TOPGUN-trained Navy fighter pilot, experimental test pilot, multiple squadron commander, and installation commander. Mark is a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society, and the University of Idaho Academy of Engineers. Mark holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and an executive MBA from Boise State University.
Associate Professor, University of Connecticut
Presentation: Connecting People, Things, and Places in GIS
Dr. Ghosh shared thoughts, lessons learned, and examples from her research on understanding the interplay of spaces of everyday life, facilitators and barriers, and social connections in which HIV infected drug users live and interact. Dr. Ghosh employs an interdisciplinary approach to investigate health issues with the goal of providing quantitative evidence for intervention and preventive policies.
Dr. Debarchana Ghosh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Connecticut.” My research employs an interdisciplinary approach to investigate health issues with the goal of providing quantitative evidence for intervention and preventive policies. Specifically, I focus on: 1) spatiotemporal modeling of infectious diseases and toxic releases and their association with unsustainable use of urban and environmental resources, 2) public health impacts of food deserts (current research), 3) Access to HIV/AIDS intervention programs (future research), and 4) environmental justice. I develop several analytical frameworks combining Geographic Information Systems (GIS), spatial statistics, machine-learning algorithms, and social network analysis as well as qualitative techniques to address the above mentioned health issues.”
Analytics Director for the Wasatch Front Regional Council
Presentation: Make BigGISh Connections!
In some ways, the GIS field suffers from the perception that it is merely a support function to more high profile application areas. True or not, our level of success is extremely dependent on our ability to connect to and across bigger needs, opportunities and desires. I’ll share some thoughts, lessons learned, and examples on how to make important connections that, ultimately help better position our valuable GIS capabilities.
Bert Granberg is the Analytics Director for the Salt Lake City area’s metropolitan planning organization, the Wasatch Front Regional Council. His focus at WFRC has been using GIS together with forecast data from long range land use and transportation models, to better understand current and future community livability, and to best inform economic development and transportation decisions.
In a former, but recent professional life, Bert directed Utah’s state GIS office, AGRC (gis.utah.gov) and served on the National Geospatial Advisory Council and as board president for the National States Geographic Information Council. Realizing the full range of opportunities for using, communicating, and otherwise ‘paying back’ the investments made in GIS, is an undercurrent to the project and coordination work during his 20 years in our field.
While worklife is a passion, ideally it’s all well-balanced with enjoying Utah’s biking and skiing amenities and time exploring Utah’s desert canyon country, with both friends and family.
Professor at NYU Center for Urban Science + Progress
With degrees from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (MS, PhD), NYU (MEng), and Columbia University (BS, MA), Prof. Debra Laefer has a wide-ranging background spanning from geotechnical and structural engineering to art history and historic preservation. Not surprisingly, Prof. Laefer’s work often stands at the cross-roads of technology creation and community values such as devising technical solutions for protecting architecturally significant buildings from sub-surface construction. As the density of her aerial remote sensing datasets continues to grow exponentially with time, Prof. Laefer and her Urban Modeling Group must help pioneer computationally efficient storage, querying, and visualization strategies that both harness distributed computing-based solutions and bridge the gap between data availability and its usability for the engineering community.
In her decade and a half as a faculty member in both the US and Europe, Prof. Laefer has served as the principal investigator for grants from a wide range of sponsors including the National Science Foundation, the US Federal Highway Administration, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Science Foundation Ireland, and the European Research Council (including a €1.5 million single investigator award from the flagship ERC program for which she is the only civil engineer to have been funded in Ireland).
Prof. Laefer has authored over 160 peer reviewed publications, been awarded 4 patents, and has supervised 15 doctoral and 20 Masters theses. Among many honors from IEEE, ISPRS, and other professional societies, the most notable is perhaps the 2016 commissioning and hanging of her portrait by the Royal Irish Academy as one of eight researchers selected to celebrate Irish women in science and engineering. She currently helps form national research programs and policies in her governmental appointment to the Irish Research Council (2016-2020).
Author/ Jornalist/Writer
Greg Milner is the author of PINPOINT: HOW GPS IS CHANGING TECHNOLOGY, CULTURE, AND OUR MINDS, named a “best book of 2016” by The Financial Times, The Times of London, and strategy+business. His previous book, PERFECTING SOUND FOREVER: AN AURAL HISTORY OF RECORDED MUSIC, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award.
His writing has appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Spin, Slate, Salon, Rolling Stone and The Sunday Times of London.
He has extensive experience as a political speechwriter. For four years, he wrote speeches for the Brooklyn Borough President.
Director of MGIS, New York City Economic Development Corporation
Presentation: Practical applications for generating insights from GIS data
Jiin Wen is an urban planner, architect and advocate, for vocational training in public education, who leads the Multimedia & Geospatial Information Service Unit at the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Over the last 15 years, she has supported many projects that shaped NYC, including the Staten Island Yankees and Brooklyn Cyclones stadiums, the High Line, and Essex Crossing.
She considers herself a data chef, sourcing data from local, state, and federal agencies and offering insight for stakeholders. Programs Jiin and her team support and service at EDC include LifeSci NYC, Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH), and Industrial Development Agency (IDA).
A product of the NYC public education system, Jiin gives back and supports her community. She served on the Community Education Council (CEC) in Brooklyn’s District 15 for two years and functions as an adviser to the current Council. She is an active and Honorary Member of the City Wide Education Council Consortium. Jiin also co-founded a Grants & Funding Workshop, helping public schools find ways to supplement their budgets.