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GISCorps Volunteers' Profiles Click here to see DPRK volunteers' profiles.
Name: Sean Bohac Organization: RECON Environmental GISCorps mission/Year served: Hurricane Katrina Mississippi Mobile GIS Shop – Hancock County ICS/2005Share your experience about the mission: The mission was one of the most dynamic, empowering GIS assignments I have ever had. We mustered in 7 days to Jackson, assembled data, equipment, drove to the disaster zone and set up a very functional lab supporting emergency personnel with paper maps and spatial analysis – very satisfying. Anything else to share: I love the mix of tech and art in producing efficient analysis and clear maps.
Sean Bohac Name: Joel Nelson Organization: University of Minnesota GISCorps mission/Year served: Katrina/2005
Anything else to share: Truly a life-changing experience, this was a wonderful opportunity for me to contribute some help to the Hurricane Katrina crisis, and learn from fellow GIS gurus along the way. The people I met, both from the area and fellow volunteers from all over the country, were top-notch in their respective GIS disciplines. I would gladly participate again.
Joel Nelson Name: Jay S. Meehl, GISP Organization: Hennepin County GIS Office, MN GISCorps mission/Year served: Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) & UN Joint Logistics Center (UNJLC) – Jakarta and Meulaboh, Indonesia/March 2005 Share your experience about the mission: I provided GIS support to the United Nations Joint Logistic Centre in Jakarta, Indonesia for a couple of days, creating data and logistic maps. Due to shifts in personnel I was sent to Meulaboh, one of the hardest hit areas along the coast of Sumatra, to temporarily support a Humanitarian Information Centre (HIC). During this period I filled map requests for various agencies, organized spatial libraries, provided hardware maintenance, and updated agency contact databases. Anything else to share: I first became interested in applying GIS to humanitarian efforts while volunteering in Limbe, Cameroon in 2002. Following that, I returned to school and completed a Master’s Degree in Geographic Information Science with an emphasis in Emergency and Humanitarian Relief Systems. However my true education came from the opportunities provided by GISCorps, where I really learned the important role GIS can play in relief efforts. Since then I have provided GIS support to the American Refugee Committee, a local chapter of the American Red Cross, and a Mercy Corps Office in the Republic of Georgia. Thanks GISCorps!
Jay Meehl Name: Katy Carpenter Organization: Tri-State Generation and Transmission GISCorps mission/Year served: Katrina - 2005 Share your experience about the mission: Worked for 10 days in Wiggins Mississippi two weeks after hurricane Katrina. Helped FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers locate and prioritize those with the greatest need.
Katy Carpenter Name: Yasser M. Ayad
Organization: Professor, Clarion University of PA
GISCorps mission/Year served: Marshall Islands Geospatial Web Application – with GSDI/2006
Share your experience about the mission: The mission was not completed since the recipient did not follow up on preliminary report.
Anything else to share: I’ve been working with GIS and GIS-related projects since the mid nineties for my graduate studies and research. Usually teaching the tools and concepts of geospatial technologies is my regular day-to-day activity, while maintaining a good contact by means of services and consultantship with local government and the public sectors. Volunteering is a part of my life-long mission, not only in the GIS world, helping others who either lack the experience or the funding to accomplish their goals is one of the most rewarding accomplishments one could make in their professional career and at a personal level too.
Yasser M. Ayad
Name: Michael Tuffly
Organization: ERIA Consultants, LLC
GISCorps mission/Year served: UNOSAT - Myanmar (Burma) Project/2008
Share your experience about the mission: It was a rewarding experience to assist other people in the time of need.
Michael Tuffly
Name: Carl Kinkade
Organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
GISCorps mission/Year served: Provide GIS Training in Afghanistan/2008
Share your experience about the mission: My mission was to provide GIS training for faculty and students from Kabul Polytechnic University and Kabul University in Kabul, Afghanistan. The mission went very well with the use of a translator. We also went through datasets available for Afghanistan and discussed applications and teaching methods with the faculty. They were very warm and appreciative of the course and hopefully we were successful in training the trainers who will be the ones to build their long term geospatial capacity as a country. They understood the importance of using geospatial technology and the importance of sharing this knowledge with the students.
Anything else to share: When I started using GIS in graduate school for community and regional planning, I immediately understood the importance of how effective it is to make informed decisions and to communicate with partners and the public. Since that day, I have been using GIS. I have always volunteered for activities which include boy scouts, coaching, and the US Peace Corps so the GISCorps was a very easy decision for me. It brought home two things that are important to me, GIS and public service. Over the last two years, I have traveled across Asia, Africa, Middle East, Central and South America teaching thousands of public health staff around the world about how to use GIS for public health. The hope is that at some point we can get past the stage of “why do we need GIS?” to where it is assumed that we will use it and can then just talk about the best way to implement it and funding pots will always have a line item for it……I know, keep dreaming…..
 Carl Kinkade Name: Tia morita
Organization: Booz Allen Hamilton
GISCorps mission/Year served: Wide Availability Response Project (WARP) – Caribbean with MapAction/2011
Share your experience about the mission: Working on this project has been a highly rewarding experience, and indeed will provide value and essential GIS data for emergency preparedness and response in the Caribbean region. Volunteering is not easy, and certainly requires careful planning of one’s time, but it is well worth it.
Anything else to share: GIS is a powerful tool and a unique skill set that only a few across nations have. It is incumbent upon us skilled GIS users, creators and developers to put our unique trade to use to impart positive results for changing lives, policy and decision making for the better.
Tia morita Name: Scott Ferguson
Organization: HeroDynamix
GISCorps mission/Year served: St. Louis County EOC, 2011
Share your experience about the mission: During the aftermath of the St. Louis tornados in April ’11, I was happy to offer any assistance I could. After connecting with my local GIS user’s group and URISA, I learned that the St. Louis Emergency Operations Center needed GIS expertise to help manage the disaster response efforts. Being able to employ GIS analysis in the efforts made it a rewarding experience. Validating and updating the road conditions in real-time using GIS software helped to manage the emergency response. In situations like this, it really makes more people aware of the value of GIS.
Anything else to share: Everyone uses GIS these days. Location and time have become more critical to everyone’s daily life. I’ve been involved in GIS for 15 years and can see how it’s evolved into a mainstream concept. I try to encourage companies to integrate it into their production workflow. GIS gives them better insight and analysis to their products and services. I’m passionate about GIS and passionate about helping people with GIS.
Scott Ferguson Name: Gabriel A. Peck
GISCorps mission/Year served: DPRK Project with iMMAP/WFP, 2010
Share your experience about the mission: My experience with the GISCorps has been a very enlightening introduction into the real world of GIS. As a recent college graduate, I have not found a job within my field since graduation in August of 2009. The GISCorps has been a great way to build experience, contacts, and a respect for the importance of remote GIS work that translates into on-the-ground help for people in need. I believe this project is a long-overdue and much needed step for the people of the DPRK. The
Anything else to share: I also volunteer my GIS skills for the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System, an organization dedicated to rebuilding the
Gabriel Peck Name: (Mary) German Whitley
Organization: Seasonal/On-call employee of Watershed Sciences, Inc.- Corvallis , OR Seasonal/On-call employee of Deer Creek GIS-Chico, CA
GISCorps mission/Year served: DPRK Project with iMMAP/WFP, 2010
Share your experience about the mission: I’ve really enjoyed my time working on the project. Since I work seasonally, it is nice to have some GIS work in the off-season to keep me on my toes and make contacts I might not make otherwise. And every project I work on, volunteer or otherwise, leads me to new discoveries within ArcMap that make my job easier and more efficient. It would be nice to have a video conference at some point during the project just to meet some of the other team members “face-to-face”.
Anything else to share: I fell into GIS while working for the US Forest Service as a Hydrologist almost 15 years ago when most tasks were done via command line. I had an aptitude for it that has helped form my career ever since. GIS even led me to meeting my husband at a conference (double nerd alert!). Now that he is retired from the Forest Service, and I work part-time, we have more time to volunteer and travel.
German Whitley Name: Kyung Kim
Organization: Geographic Services Inc.
GISCorps mission/Year served: Wide Availability Response Project (WARP) –
Share your experience about the mission: My mission was to search for various spatial data for
Anything else to share: Through my work I first encountered ArcExplorer many years ago, and got more interested to learn GIS in evening school. Now I am doing work with ArcGIS and some programming also. I always find myself like reading maps and learning about the earth and computers. Briefly I had lost my GIS job, and I thought volunteering in GIS would be a good way to keep in touch with GIS. Now I have my job back but I want to keep volunteering also!
Kyung Kim
Name: Nathan Pugh
Organization: USDA-Farm Service Agency-Aerial Photography Field Office
GISCorps mission/Year served: Wide Availability Response Project (WARP) –
Share your experience about the mission: To improve operational disaster-preparedness by establishing a swiftly available repository of basic GIS data to support rapid response humanitarian missions from within or outside of a country in the event of a disaster in the Latin American & Caribbean Region. The purpose is not necessarily to provide online viewing of the data. It is primarily to allow a swift start to the creation of situation maps of the circumstances of a disaster, through the combination of the basic WARP datasets and field reports in a desktop environment, and the swift distribution of those map products in hard copy to field personnel, and as PDFs, JPEGs and KMLs to national and international humanitarian/ emergency/aid/funding agencies.
Anything else to share: There are not many volunteer possibilities to assist humanitarian organizations from home so I am very happy to have this opportunity. It has been difficult to find quality spatial data for
Nathan Pugh
Name: Rob George
Organization: Rite Aid Corporation
GISCorps mission/Year served: Identity Inc., Montgomery County, MD/2011
Share your experience about the mission: It has been a pleasure working with Identity, Inc looking to see if wealth flight has created an unfair advantage to children within the
Anything else to share: I have been doing some sort of geographic research for the past 20 years. I am currently the Director of Market Research for Rite Aid Corporation. We use geography to locate our stores, place product in our stores and market to people around our stores. I signed up to be a part of GISCorps after Hurricane Katrina and this is the first project I have been a part of. I am extremely excited to use my skill set to hopefully better other’s lives.
Name: Hiroyuki Iseki, Ph.D.
Organization: Assistant Professor,
Share your experience about the mission: It was an invaluable opportunity to use my expertise, knowledge, and professional connections in the efforts to provide assistance to people who suffer from the earthquake/tsunami disasters in my own county,
Anything else to share: I use GISs to process, analyze, and visualize data for my research in urban planning and policy analysis with a focus on transportation, land use, and environment. I also teach courses on applications of GISs to planning, with an emphasis on how spatial thinking and analysis could help us understand built environment, people’s living conditions, and related urban planning/policy issues. GISs have become such an important, useful tool in the field of planning. And I hope people in the field will always seek the use of GISs beyond simple data mapping/visualization.
Hiroyuki Iseki
Name: Jasmine Ward
Organization: Ward Computer Services Inc.
GISCorps mission/Year served: DPRK Project with iMMAP/WFP, 2010
Share your experience about the mission: The digitization project was both challenging and interesting. I was able to grow professionally by utilizing new skills in completing the scope of the project. I also felt fulfilled knowing that the work was being used for a humanitarian purpose. The coordinators and team leaders of the project were very knowledgeable of GIS and demonstrated professionalism and organization in the execution of the project. I was impressed with the collaboration tools that were used to coordinate the project effort.
Anything else to share: I became interested in GIS through a high school internship/mentorship with the NASA Langley Research Center GIS team. I was able to learn GIS application principles and GIS problem solving skills through interesting real-world projects. That internship experience fostered my enthusiasm for GIS and gave me the eye for identifying emerging applications of GIS.
Jasmine Ward
Name: Dr. Terance L. Winemiller Ph.D., GISP
Organization: Associate Professor,
Share your experience about the mission: The GISCorps mission was to analyze satellite imagery to help guide the emergency response efforts for the coastal communities that were either directly impacted by the March, 2011 tsunami inundation or, at the time, had not reported their condition. After I was selected to participate, I received geographic coordinates for three cities located on the northern coast of
Anything else to share: I became interested in GIS as a graduate student at
Terry Winemiller
Name: Guy Maurice
Organization: RENECO wild conservation
GISCorps mission/Year served: Geo-Referencing & Cleansing Election Database – Chad/2010 Share your experience about the mission: This project was commissioned by Information Management and Mine Action Programs (iMMAP) who is assisting the Chadian Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) in
Guy Maurice
Name: Takeo Shibata
GISCorps mission/Year served: Share your experience about the mission: Our mission was to create the base map of Albanian flooded area and share the information using Open Street Map. By this mission, I had the opportunity to explorer and use a lot of interesting GIS. This project was remote basis and utilizing various communication tools, I have the opportunity to share the data and information with other professionals around the world. This was very variable experience and I hope I can get involved in another project soon!
Anything else to share: I am interested in two things in GIS. One is the application of GIS to the logistics and smart navigation. One example is to find the best route combinations for multiple stops by multiple cars/trucks with the feedback of traffic information. The other one is to create useful maps for the disaster response, nature conservation, agriculture or scientific usage using the remote sensing data.
Takeo Shibata
Name: Shondra Helen Hogan, GISP
Organization:
GISCorps mission/Year served: Alabama April Tornadoes with CrisisCommons/2011
Anything else to share: It was my privilege to assist GISCorps and CrisisCommons deploy a media monitoring service to aide in the recovery efforts for the
Shondra Helen Hogan
Name: Max Silin
GISCorps mission/Year served: AllHands Volunteers - Geodatabase & Web Application Development / 2013
Share your experience about the mission: The goal of our mission is to design a web-based geodatabase and a web-mapping application for capture, management, and query of the spatial and non-spatial data pertaining to the All Hands Volunteers Recovery Coordination Services (RCS) operations. The major challenge in the beginning was to standardize the broad range of project requirements and determine the technology and skill set necessary for the successful project implementation. By now, we have a strong team of professionals, collaborating closely with the project stakeholders and working closely towards the next stage of the project. As we speak, the project team is in the process of optimizing the existing customer data to be loaded into the designed geodatabase and finalizing the functional requirements for the future web-application development.
Anything else to share: GIS - is the key to a better, environmentally friendly future. Nowadays, as the modern technology enables GIS to perform to its full potential, businesses and government organizations of all levels realize the value that GIS brings to the table and embrace the geospatial technology. I am proud to be a part of the growing GIS community, and thankful to the GISCorps for giving me an opportunity to contribute my professional skills for a Better World.
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