#DRMPerspective

Celebrating 2021 GIS Day

November 17th, 2021

Each year, DRMP celebrates our Geographic Information Systems (GIS) professionals and strives to highlight the unique work they perform for a diverse range of clients. We sat down with GIS Project Manager Kelly Marton, GISP, and GIS Specialist Mark Brown, GISP, to discuss their thoughts on the adaptability of DRMP’s GIS service offerings as well as what motivates them to perform the work they do.

How do you feel your work reflects the community?

Kelly marton, gisp

GIS Project Manager

8 Years of Experience

One of the best parts of being a GIS professional is that GIS is a tool that can be applied to challenges across a wide spectrum of fields and client types. We get to work for clients that inherently are the community, like public school districts and local governments. The projects that we do to assist in our local communities are always so easy to be proud of because it feels like we left our mark with projects like a connectivity master plan, real estate site selection, or school board redistricting.

Mark Brown, gisp

GIS Specialist

14 Years of Experience

As we are deep into the information age, access, storage and use of information are paramount to many tasks we do on a daily basis. GIS is used daily in many industries and applications. Whether it is location data logged by phones, geotagging photo locations, physical infrastructure being constructed, or general movement of people, geospatial data is being consumed and created. The work we do is an important cog in the wheel of data consumption and geospatial problem-solving.

What excites you about being a GIS professional?

Kelly marton, gisp

The GIS field is always changing and evolving, which means there is always something new and exciting to learn. Just since I started learning GIS in college, there has been a huge push toward web GIS and creating maps that can be viewed interactively online. I love this move to web GIS because I can fit way more detail and functionality into a web map than a paper map. The constant evolution of the technology available also motivates me to keep learning, because if I don’t keep learning I can’t offer the latest and greatest services to my clients.

Mark Brown, gisp

I am excited to show new ways to solve problems and answer questions using spatial data to analyze and exhibit to the world around us.

If you could describe your job in one sentence, what would it be?

Kelly marton, gisp

My job is to solve problems and anticipate future issues for my clients using a wide range of geographic tools and specialized data analysis.

Mark Brown, gisp

My job is to create, analyze, edit data and display it in a variety of outputs including paper maps and web mapping applications for better dissemination.

What has been your favorite project to work on?

Kelly marton, gisp

Despite the unfortunate circumstances that necessitated it, the project I am the proudest of working on was our Alachua County Public Schools Mobile Wifi Hotspot Distribution Analysis . We are honored to have a long and productive working relationship with Alachua County Public Schools. When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit and schools were closed down, we were able to jump right into action and help the district equitably distribute school busses that powered WiFi hotspots for students with substandard access to the internet. Our team used student address data, census data, and economic data to choose locations for those hotspots that served the most children possible and focused on the ones who needed support the most. This project had to move fast from start to finish, and it had to be done well. We don’t frequently work in such a time crunch, but it made it something to be even more proud of once it was done.

Mark Brown, gisp

For the last three years we have been assisting the City of Maitland, Florida with their GIS Implementation. I would have to say this project stands out as one of my favorites. As a continuing consultant, we started assisting the City when they had only legacy data in outdated formats. Today the city has a robust and updated GIS system for internal city needs and public citizen use, and we continue to work with them to keep their data current.

How do you help your clients understand how GIS could benefit them?

Kelly marton, gisp

In a lot of cases, client goals are as simple as saving money or making money so that those funds can be spent for other, better uses. Our analysis can help streamline costly asset maintenance, identify and apply for grant funding, or find the most lucrative location for a new business. Once we have an established relationship with a client, they often become more aware of the kind of additional analysis services we can offer and start to ask us to help them in areas they never imagined GIS could help them with.

Mark Brown, gisp

It really begins with a question. What tasks, or products do you repeatedly have to create and what questions do you need to answer on a daily basis? Then we are able to show them how GIS can help to simplify that task, organize data, save time effort and ultimately increase productivity.

Posted in the categories All, Geographic Information Systems.

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