Esri Minneapolis YPN Spring Meetup 2026

Question

Twin Cities — explore careers in GIS with us this month! 🌎

Join the Esri Young Professionals Network (YPN) Spring Meetup for a GIS Career Panel highlighting different paths within the geospatial field—from photogrammetry and public land work to urban planning.

I’ll also be speaking as a panelist alongside a great group of professionals, sharing a bit about my early career as a Photogrammetric Technician and my journey into STEM and GIS.

✨Panelists include:

• Dale Watt — GIS Project Manager, Trust for Public Land

• Elizabeth Abramson — Graduate Student, Masters of Urban & Regional Planning, University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs

• Sandra Flores-Castillo — GIS Professional, Photogrammetric Technician, MnDOT

Whether you're a student, early-career professional, or just curious about GIS, come hear real-world experiences and ask your questions.

Tuesday, April 21, 2026
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM (CDT)
📍Esri Regional Office
880 Blue Gentian Road, Suite 200
St. Paul, MN

🔗Register here:https://registration.esri.com/flow/esri/26ypnsprmtpmn/registrationrequest/page/registration-details

#GIS #Photogrammetry #UrbanPlanning #Geospatial #YPN #Esri #TwinCities #EsriYPN

SandraFlores-Castillo · Answer

Hello @KCCash,

That's a great question. From my perspective, one of the biggest impacts GIS has had on DOTs is improving how we manage, visualize, and share transportation data across an entire organization. While emergency response and routing during storm events are definitely important applications, GIS also plays a major role in long-term transportation planning, asset management, project development, and decision-making.

In my area of work, photogrammetry and remote sensing support GIS by providing accurate spatial data that helps create and maintain transportation datasets. Having reliable geospatial information allows engineers, planners, maintenance staff, and leadership to make better-informed decisions throughout a project's lifecycle.

Looking ahead, I think we'll continue seeing greater integration between GIS, reality capture technologies (lidar, drones, mobile mapping, and aerial imagery), and digital twin environments. As data collection becomes faster and more automated, GIS will increasingly serve as the platform that connects and visualizes information from many different transportation systems.

At MnDOT, we're already seeing growing interest in leveraging high-resolution imagery, lidar, and other geospatial technologies to support transportation workflows. It will be exciting to see how GIS continues to evolve from a mapping tool into an even more comprehensive decision-support system.

KCCash · Answer

Hello Sandra!

I was wondering what you think the largest impact GIS has had on DOT overall? Being with a Utility company in my experience, GIS has helped DOT a lot when dealing with storm response and reconstruction for routing crews to heavily impacted areas. Also, do you see any additional advancements being made to your DOT's GIS system soon? Curious as for what you think will come about with GIS being integrated with DOT systems.

MdSohel · Answer

Thanks for sharing the insight.