Welcome to New Esri Community MVPs!
Every year, the Esri Community team connects with a select few members who demonstrate the highest standards for engagement and behavior in this platform, and invite them to join our Esri Community MVP program. 2024 has begun on an especially strong note with the largest group of incoming Esri Community MVPs that we’ve experienced in some years—14!
Each of these individuals are dedicated to the five core characteristics central to the MVP program, which include: Expertise a deep understanding of Esri products; Kindness promoting empathy among members; Commitment fostering collaboration and engagement; Advocacy demonstrating respectful behavior in discussions of Esri and Esri Community; and Leadership providing guidance and support to others.
Learn more about these new MVPs in their own words and be sure to share a warm welcome in the comments!
. . . . .
— Alphabetical by last name or username —
Robert Anderson (@RobertAnderson3)
Originally from Hamilton, Ontario I went to McMaster University for Earth and Environmental Science which is where I discovered and fell in love with GIS. After a few years and a cross Canada trip on the train, I moved to Nova Scotia to attend the Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS) and then landed in Moncton, New Brunswick working for the city where I’ve been for the last 5 years. Working with my team here I’ve touched on many different aspects of using GIS in a municipality and love being able to have a positive impact on services in my community. There has been a large push to move to paperless and mobile GIS applications, primarily I have focused on the use of Survey123 to collect information on field work being completed removing the use of paper forms, and using Power Automate to transfer data into our asset/work management database.
I am a strong advocate for public transportation as there is such a strong need for better transit for people to move around and I hope to use my GIS knowledge to contribute to building and improving these systems in the future. Outside of work I enjoy video games, music and attending concerts (especially Canadian artists!), as well as getting to travel and explore new places and natural landscapes.
Alfred Baldenweck (@AlfredBaldenweck)
I’m a GIS specialist for the federal government with a background in archaeology. I previously worked for a small National Park in Hawai’i, where I spearheaded our transition to ArcGIS Pro as well as our mobile collection program. I’m interested in Python and SQL and dabble in Arcade. Some recent projects of mine have been focused on the preservation and conversion of legacy GIS formats as my current Agency transitions into ArcGIS Pro as a whole.
Saadullah Baloch (@Ed_)
I am a passionate and progressive data analyst/scientist who's passionate about data analytics that can help mitigate issues and in policies related to climate change, environmental issues, urban planning and demographics. I think the reason why I like data analytics is because I am inquisitive and imaginative and so I like asking questions and data analytics helps me answer those questions. It's like the saying goes, science without imagination is like a bird without wings. Notable projects include 40 year timeseries air temperature and precipitation analysis for Broward County. I actually won the 2023 National Association of Counties (NACo) award for this project last year. I am also currently leading the project for creating the county's Data Portal. Last but not least, I am also working on a county wide tree canopy project using the Object Detection tools in ArcGIS Pro.
Moreover, I am passionate about projects related to any domain that fits under GIS, be it climate change, water resource management, wildfires, ecology, health (such as disease data), social sciences, criminology, elections or any other project related to GIS and spatial statistics analysis by using GIS, R, remote sensing or LiDAR data. I also like to publish data in the form of spatial web applications. I also used to make custom GIS web applications using R Shiny back in college. I also recently started playing with PowerBI which I think is also a nice skill to have as a data analyst. This is another reason why I like data analytics as it's not redundant and boring.
The reason why I like the ESRI community platform is because I get to learn a lot, share ideas and help where I can. And in my opinion no question is a bad question, it's like and I quote "Children are not afraid to pose basic questions that may embarrass us, as adults, to ask." - Sir Roger Penrose.
PS My hobbies include PC gaming, cooking and deep cleaning my home every weekend lol.
Joel Bennett (@JoelBennett)
I've been a GIS Software Developer since 2004. Although living in the state of Hawaii for the last 7 years, I'm originally from Titusville, Florida and have earned an A.S. in Computer Programming and Applications (2002), an A.A. (2007), and a B.S. in Computer Science (2009). The vast majority of my career has been in contract work with the U.S. Air Force, with a particular focus in writing software that specializes in supporting civil engineering operations. I've been happily married to my wife Tiffany since 2007, and have 2 children. In my free time I enjoy video and board games, hiking, traveling, and working on cars.
Zach Bodenner (@ZachBodenner)
I got my start in geography after taking my first human geography course to meet requirements to be a social studies teacher. After taking one cartography class I switched majors and never looked back! Since finishing my master's degree in geography, I've worked as an English teacher in South Korea, spent a year with the Minnesota Conservation Corps, and did a brief stint for a private GIS firm before finding my way to The City of Eden Prairie Minnesota, where I'm now the GIS Coordinator.
I'm a new member of the Minnesota GIS/LIS Consortium's K-12 Education Committee, where I hope to help educators around the state incorporate GIS into their curriculum as a teaching tool. I'm still relatively early in my GIS career, so I'm looking forward to everything that I'll learn as the future unfolds!
When it comes to personal interests, I like to bike, hike, sit with a good book, bake a tasty loaf of sourdough and enjoy the occasional Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I also enjoy illustrating fantasy maps as a very once-in-a-while side business, though all those hobbies have taken a back seat since welcoming my wonderfully spirited daughter to the world two and half years ago.
Alex Bureaux (@abureaux)
I am doing what I do now as happenstance... I started off in IT, but decided quickly that I didn't want to spend all day helping people with their computer troubles (oh, the irony). As a result, I decided to enter into Natural Resources and Environmental Technology, which led me to getting my BSc in Environmental Science, and then Adv. Dip. in Marine Geomatics (COGS!) of all things. The plan was to do my MSc after that, but my loans were rather large at that point, so I decided to start paying them down...
I ended up in Environmental Consulting. Life inevitably happened, and I moved to Alberta (I miss NS) where I continued doing that for around 8-9 years. It quickly became apparent to me that A) my company was sorely lacking in GIS capabilities, and B) my computer skills were in high demand. I spent a lot of my time helping build out little process automations and improving drafting capabilities until I got my "big break(?)" a few years ago when we created a new division to help with digital transformation.
While I still work for the same company, my new roll has me going in an entirely different direction with my career. As a part of my new work, I have had to learn about Esri Enterprise, and have now built and deployed several Enterprise Servers. At the moment, these are on-prem deployments, but later this year we will be moving to Azure. I work a lot with S123, MS's Power Platform, and now FME (still working on that extra ArcPro license) to digitize and modernize our old paper processes. I have gotten to help guide an old-school "pen and paper" company into a highly automated and GIS focused company. And at the heart of it all: Esri!
Most of my time these days is taken up in meetings and responding to users, so between those meetings, I tend to find myself browsing the community and trying to answer questions. It has been an excellent learning experience for me, and I am glad that others have found my ramblings useful.
I hope that I can keep growing my career, and contribute more to this wonderful community in the process.
Chris Counsell (@ChristopherCounsell)
Currently based in Sydney, Australia, I lead a spatial application development team for an international vegetation and asset management company.
I have worked with GIS for over a decade, including previous roles in private consulting and a 4 year tenure at Esri Australia. My experience across the ArcGIS platform is backed by 10 Esri certifications. I have a soft spot for Story Maps as a means of engagement, having won The Esri Story Map competition in 2017 for Travel, Destinations, and Recreation. But you'll see me most active in the Survey123 forum as it's my skills with field data collection that have landed me my current role. In my spare time I enjoy training for ultra marathons and making maps.
Amanda Huber (@Amanda__Huber)
I'm a GIS Administrator for Three Rivers Park District [threeriversparks.org], a local government agency in Minnesota. I also serve as a Minnesota GIS/LIS Consortium [mngislis.org] Board member and volunteer Chair of the MN GIS/LIS Communications Committee. In my free time, I freelance for Blue Water GIS, [bluewatergis.com] a small GIS company based in Bellingham, WA. A few things I love to do in my spare time are hiking, fishing, and playing competitive club ultimate frisbee.
Peter Knoop (@PeterKnoop)
Greetings everyone, it is a pleasure to join such an amazing group!
I am a Research Consultant in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, at the University of Michigan, a position I took on in 2012. We have over 10,000 users in our ArcGIS Online organization, which I help administer. I also lead a GIS team providing support to users that span the breadth of the liberal arts. I have a focus on introducing GIS technologies to areas of the liberal arts that have not traditionally been major consumers of GIS; similarly for cloud computing and extended reality technologies.
I find myself wearing a lot of different hats over the course of the year, spending time in the field with archaeologists using Survey123, Field Maps, and Drone2Map, leading geology field trips using Field Maps and StoryMaps, guest lecturing in English, Political Science, History, Asian Languages, Judaic Studies, etc. using StoryMaps, Map Viewer, Insights, Dashboards, etc., assisting users with map-making and spatial analysis utilizing the full spectrum of Esri ArcGIS tools, teaching GIS as part of STEM outreach and coastal oceanography in West Africa, and more. Never a dull moment when you are surrounded by brilliant and motivated students, faculty, and staff!
I have never actually taken any GIS courses. I picked it up along the way while earning degrees in paleoceanography and geology (seems like geology might be a requirement to join this group? 🙂 Degrees I have not used much, as I got side-tracked in the 1990's into what become the School of Information at the University of Michigan, where I worked on collaboration software for scientific research (before the web existed, when real-time graphical and text messaging functionality on a NeXT computer was ground-breaking for scientists working in remote locations around the world, coordinating studies of the upper atmosphere 🙂 That path eventually led to web-based collaboration systems supporting large-scale scientific collaborations in the space sciences, high-energy physics, AIDS research, earthquake engineering, etc., and open-source learning management systems. In the 2000's I also become involved in exploring how to best use technologies, like GIS, for field science education and research. I started by customizing ArcGIS Desktop 8.3 for teaching field geology on 10-pound, pen-based, strap-on, Windows NT computers, using both ArcMap and ArcScene, and have evolved to using using Field Maps and iPads today.
Throughout all of that time I continued to co-lead geology field trips at U-M, and in recent years have leveraged those opportunities to experiment with new GIS technologies. Field trips are great for providing real-world circumstances and a group of testers, whose grades are not dependent on the success or failure of the technology, which combined are a great resource for learning what will and won't work, before someone attempts to rely on a technology for real research and teaching. I also accompany select groups of researchers into the field that have both an interest in trying new GIS technologies AND are fault-tolerant. I am there to help troubleshoot if (when) things go wrong, and to collaborate on developing best practices that can be shared with others with similar workflow needs.
Along the way, Jack was kind enough to recognize the GIS work we do at the University of Michigan with the 2021 Esri President's Award.
As you can probably tell, I like my GIS outdoors, rather than indoors! I also enjoy the variety of GIS challenges one encounters with a large organization 🙂
@Laura
@MobiusSnake
@SLouq
Scott Tansley (@Scott_Tansley)
I studied geography at University, and one module there touched on GIS. I was intrigued but it was several years later that an employer asked, “Do you know what GIS is?” My response led to me learning ArcView 3.2 and a change in career direction from a Project Manager to GIS Professional. I was originally a GIS Analyst/Data Technician but showed a flare for development (VBA then). I learnt C# and SQL and SQL Server. I started developing applications in the UK where I worked in Central Government. We were early adopters of ArcGIS Server (9.2) and I learnt a lot and very quickly, mainly from the Esri discussion boards.
I was recruited to Esri UK as a consultant where for a while I worked with partners and alliances from small companies through to global giants. Through connections I was head hunted and asked to move to New Zealand. I arrived during the Canterbury Earthquakes in 2011. Recruited as a developer, I quickly ended up refocussing on infrastructure, security and deploying ArcGIS software to support the recovery of Christchurch City and its local environments. In such a small country my work was put under the spotlight. As a result I never returned to the developer role, and instead started to focus more and more on ArcGIS Server system design, implementation, maintenance, performance, security and upgrades. I worked for several consultancies before joining Eagle Technology (the Esri distributor in NZ). There I worked on a range of solution architecture projects, mainly across Central Government.
In 2019, in the face of illness, I took a different route and started contracting for NZ entities that needed senior GIS consultancy resources. It quickly became apparent that I was available for consultancy as well, and geoworx (my practice) was launched. I built a portfolio of clients from small councils, through regional water utilities and large AEC enterprises. Last year I recruited my first Senior Consultant and demand/growth remains strong. geoworx is all about making sure that ArcGIS Enterprise is designed, built, and maintained to the highest standards. We concentrate on the bit between the Operating System and the APIs. It’s not often that I work with web apps or data or do the exciting stuff that GIS is all about. My professional interest is to make sure that my clients can do that with a strong platform beneath them.
ArcGIS Enterprise is therefore my specialist area of interest. It’s the Community Forum that I follow and subscribe to, and where I try to give back to the community that helped me learn my craft. A large part of what I do in my professional career is encouraging and mentoring others, I guess that’s why I’ve ended up on the Community Pages so much.
Jeffrey Thompson (@JeffreyThompson2)
I have a BS and MS in Geology from The University of Texas at Austin and the Colorado School of Mines respectively. Over five years experience as a petroleum geologist, followed by several years with no real career that I used to develop a personal life and get married to a woman who is superior to me in every practical way. I enrolled in a coding bootcamp and started a new career as a GIS Developer. I am currently working for the City of Arlington, Texas. My hobbies include entertaining a toddler, travel, hiking, whitewater rafting, scuba diving, swimming, board games, rock collecting, and watching hockey and baseball.