Thank you Charles. The internal compass is always the most important bearing to calibrate in life--so we can lead by example and follow with purpose. My career in GIS has been blessed by the privilege I was born with, that which has been shared with me and that I can share with others. You have shared much and your leadership has showed me how to share that with others. I grew up between Folsom and Donner Pass in the watersheds shared by Nisenan people and owe much of my success to the lives of my immigrant ancestors who came to settle at Sutter's Fort and to work for the Stanford's. I owe much to that wonderful landscape that taught me by being in it and what was and reinforced by what I learned from Maidu people and living near Maidu Regional Park. I also owe much to how I am by what repelled me about the destruction of landscape and people as I played in the mountains of rock tailings from hydraulic mining along the banks of the river between the duck and cover drills (common for kids surrounded by 3 air force bases and missile manufacturers during the Cold War). In my career in environmental education between 1985 and 2004 it became clear that geographic literacy was the most essential gap I encountered whenever teaching. Biology that informed conservation action or environmental justice requires sense of place, orienteering, and the relationship of biology and geography to them. When I added GIS to my education work and transitioned to a career in GIS between 1999 and 2004, you and Charlie Fitzpatrick were there saying and doing the things I saw as so important, the same important things shared by the people where I grew up. GIS and ESRI tools were part of how you broadcast all that good knowledge. This strengthened my resolve that my work could be do that too. I look forward to running into you again and for your next introduction as you bring daylight to your strengths and flaws so you can purposefully evolve. By then I hope to have more to add to my introduction due to the changes and growth brought by honing the skills of curiosity, compassion, serendipity, and giving.
... View more
