Image: 2025 Esri Community Contest banner
We’ve reached a perennially favorite moment for the Esri Community team—our annual lookback into Esri Community engagement from the prior year. We do this to understand trends and changes, but also to identify the much-anticipated winners for the Esri Community Contest. Before we get to the winners, though, our team wants to express an enormous congratulations and thank you for the countless connections, gestures of support, knowledge contributions, and GIS advancements that took place because of the collective work of Esri Community’s members. Together, your efforts add up to a truly staggering body of partnership and generosity.
Now, please join us in celebrating the nine individuals who best met the criteria of our 2025 Esri Community Contest by having demonstrated uniquely great levels of participation. The quality and quantity of their contributions during the last year stand out among those of Esri Community’s 466,597 active members.
Winners’ circles are broken down into three distinct categories that capture key stages of the member’s journey. See Announcing the 2025 Esri Community Contest for rules and additional details.
Elite Level
This level encompasses our true community superstars, otherwise known as our Esri Community MVPs. Though a fraction of all Esri Community membership (just 0.01%), MVPs collectively provided 29% of all confirmed answers to posted questions in 2025.
@CodyPatterson (97 Solutions) – Cody has achieved what might be called a “Triple Crown” win of Esri Community Contest, having earned a Newcomer of the Year spot when he joined in 2023, then taking a Rising Star spot in 2024, followed by this year’s top spot in the Elite Level competition for 2025. What makes Cody’s rocket-fueled ascent doubly remarkable is that his GIS journey only began within the last few years, as shared in his MVP bio found at: Welcome to 2025's New Esri Community MVPs!
@DanPatterson (90 Solutions) – Patterson appears to be a coincidental (but powerful) shared last name among victors. Dan is a longtime Esri Community member and venerated MVP who is a highly familiar presence on the Esri Community Contest’s circle of winners, having earned a top spot for more years than any other. Whenever Esri users and staff speak of the very best outcomes Esri Community helps foster, Dan’s name is often part of that conversation.
@KenBuja (87 Solutions) – While it’s his first time breaking into the top three for the Esri Community Contest, Ken has been a persistent, supportive presence in the platform and its predecessors going back to 2010. In his time, Ken has generously shared his knowledge to the tune of nearly 1,000 confirmed solutions to others’ questions in addition to making a great many more contributions. Ken has recently been featured in Esri Community’s free Ebook Building GIS Together: Stories from the Esri Community Experience, where you can find his story Ocean Systems Under Pressure on page 74.
Rising Star
At this level, we recognize our up-and-coming members who have gone above and beyond this year. Their numerous replies to others account for the bulk of the contribution evaluated for this contest; the quality of which is often framed by their Accepted Solutions and kudos received from others.
@Neal_t_k – If you were to look at the Leaderboard for Esri Community’s Top Collaborators at the time of this posting, you’ll find Neal virtually neck-and-neck for the top spot, right among Esri Community MVPs. 2025 saw Neal post hundreds of times, most of which consisted of responding to other’s ArcGIS Survey123 or ArcGIS Dashboard questions. It’s no wonder to us that Neal has earned the gratitude of many peers over the course of 2025.
@gis_KIWI4 – A major frequenter and contributor in the ArcGIS Utility Network space, Sahil has established a considerable expertise and readiness to help others improve their own GIS outcomes. In addition to ArcGIS Network Utility, Sahil can be found popping up in a number of other areas, including ArcGIS Field Maps, ArcGIS Online, and Electric. Another member, @dsinha, set the tone for Sahil’s impact when responding here that: “After having spent almost 3 days trying to calculate a ticket number using the method in the link, your suggestions are godsend.”
@NicoleJohnson – Though not exclusive to ArcGIS Experience Builder, the product is a key focal point where Nicole has been an active voice in helping solve others’ questions and in contributing to ArcGIS Ideas. Throughout the year, Nicole displayed a community-first mindset by taking numerous opportunities to build on conversations and produce solutions that advanced the outcomes for Esri’s global collective of users. As a result, Nicole’s name has even been brought up to the Esri Community team as an exemplary member by an appreciative Esri Community MVP.
Newcomer of the Year
These members joined Esri Community in 2025 and jumped right into collaborating and engaging with others in standout ways, including a prolific degree of posting across Boards. Welcome!
@AndyKubrin – New on the scene, Andy has leapt feet first into Esri Community conversations by asking questions but also by feeding knowledge back in when working out solutions so that others can also benefit. That give and take mindset captures the essence of what keeps an online community healthy and functioning.
@SydneyHeathcott – Sydney made Esri Community a source for finding solutions to ArcGIS Pro needs multiple times this year, engaging in constructive back-and-forth sessions with other members. And it wasn’t just a case of looking to peers for their help—Sydney also took the opportunity to offer troubleshooting help and to follow up with solution results to close the loop with others.
@SaraWazir – Not even a full six months since joining Esri Community, Sara’s participation has risen above those of other newcomers by asking good questions and interacting across boards in the ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Experience Builder, and ArcGIS Hub Places. Sara has even demonstrated a care for others by closing the loop on one of those questions after working out a solution so that everyone could benefit from the knowledge.
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Thank you to everyone who took part in the conversations, the idea sharing, and the collaboration that happened here in Esri Community during 2025. Whether you engaged with others often or only once, all levels of involvement are an important part of making this platform a crucial, award-winning resource for Esri users.
