GIS Day promotes awareness of geographic information systems (GIS) technology throughout our world. GeoSearch promotion of GIS jobs and awareness is a year-long initiative. GIS Day Events can be found in more than 80 countries participating with corporate open houses, government hosted hands-on workshops, community expos, school assemblies, and more. GIS Day is principally sponsored by the National Geographic Society, the Association of American Geographers, University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, the United States Geological Survey, The Library of Congress, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and Esri.
Archive for the ‘GIS’ Category
GIS Day 2011 – November 16, 2011.
Monday, November 7th, 2011GeoSearch Covers The GEOINT 2011 Symposium
Monday, October 17th, 2011
The GEOINT 2011 Symposium (focused on promoting the geospatial intelligence tradecraft) kicked off with a pre-symposium on Sunday the 16th of October. Forums that explore the current state-of-the-art and future of wide area motion imagery (WAMI), full-motion video (FMV) platforms, and Mobile GEOINT Applications sessions inspired the day. Further, the “Future of GEOINT Professional Development” and Socio-Cultural Dynamics: “An Overview from a Diplomacy, Development, Defense and Intelligence Perspectives” rounded out the topical theme. However, it was the Six Flags Over Texas GEOINT 2011 Welcome Reception at Sunset Station that pumped up the party. Sponsored by Northrop Grumman, dozens of chartered busses transported conference attendees and sponsors to an outdoor venue with live music, Texas cuisine, and dancing. Off the bus, a mariachi band welcomed participants. Inside, one guitar player and other stringed music played Mexican style tunes. However, the headline band was Cactus Country, a cover band that played oldies, some rock, but mostly top chart country music. Line dancing with instruction ensued.
October 17, the Expo Hall opened at 11:00. Exhibits rage from giant organizations like Google, SAIC, Lockheed Martin, and Oracle to core geospatial organizations like Woolpert and Blue Marble Geographics. The term booth doesn’t fit this exhibit showcase. Some structures are two stories high, complete with a staircase to the 2nd floor. Huge video screens are on display with imagery that can be manipulated by touch. Large leather sofa’s and coffee tables allow participants to relax while taking in a demonstration. One vendor had a tall, beautiful, blond offering an authentic shoe shine atop an antique wooden shoe shine chair. Among the crowd walking the floor was the President of Continental Mapping Dave Hart. Brant Howard, founder of CompassCom and Hayden Howard, CompassData field services manager. Mark Safran Senior Manager at BAE, Joe Francica the Editor, Directions Magazine and Shawana Johnson of Global Marketing Insights.
This is the place to be to tap into the geospatial intelligence community of interest between government, industry, academic, and professional organizations. Cleared geospatial talent has always been in demand and GeoSearch has sourced that demographic for over a decade. The market demand for this group is increasing as fast as the technology is changing.
GeoSearch, Inc., Launches Redesigned Geospatial Careers Website
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Press Release) – Mar 09, 2011 – The geospatial career leader opened for business in 1989 and has operated on the internet since October 12th 1995. When www.geosearch.com was registered on-line, it became the world’s first geospatial job board. To keep pace with rapid change online, the website has revamped several times. The sustaining mission for the design team is to strive for a site with solid technology, relevant content, and simplicity. The only objective is to match employers with job seekers.
The new site is aesthetic, quick, and useful. Employers now benefit from an easy method to register, manage, and administrate corporate accounts. This includes multiple logons per employer account if required with role based authority for ‘administrator’ or ‘associate’ level. Employers can maintain a complete history of postings, create new postings, edit existing postings, plus ‘template’ postings. To identify qualified candidates, employers can use unlimited employer defined screening questions per posting, applicant ‘scoring’ based on responses. Tools are built in to maintain a complete history of online applications, respond by email to applicants – individually, or to multiple applicants at one time, and forward applications by email.
For geospatial job seekers, pages load quickly and searches are fast.
Registration is free and registered job seekers have a custom home page where they can opt in/out of emails from the GeoSearch job board. The back office technology offers robust Profile/Resume management that supports one or multiple profiles/resumes per job seeker account. To meet the needs of this technologically savvy demographic, the architecture supports resumes as text (keyed or pasted) or uploaded attachments (.pdf, .doc, .docx, .rtf, .txt). The Customizable job seeker profile form, add fields to capture information relevant to the geospatial niche. Job ‘Agents’ for registered candidates are unlimited and customizable with user defined search criteria including job category, location, keywords, zip code/radius miles, etc. To control the frequency of engagement, tools are built in with ‘auto-opt-out’ links at the bottom of every job agent email. GeoSearch also has service offerings for new college graduates looking to find their first job.
The redesign also includes social media plug-in’s that engage the geospatial community to stay connected with the latest industry news, events, career advice and job openings. The site is search engine optimized to increase traffic and connect more geospatial employers with geospatial job seekers.
“The clean look and simple navigation of the new site provides our customers with an easy method to reach their desired audience.” said GeoSearch President Richard Serby.
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GeoSearch, Inc is a personnel recruitment firm specializing in the geospatial sciences and technologies. GeoSearch began operations in October, 1989. October 12th 1995 www.geosearch.com was registered on-line making it the first geospatial job board.
PPCC Interactive Workshop on Spatial Technologies
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
Rampart Range Campus
In an effort to support and promote the inclusion of geospatial applications in Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs in Colorado, the Colorado Community College System (CCCS), Pikes Peak Community College, and UCCS offered a free one-day interactive Workshop on Spatial Technologies for Career and Technical Education at the PPCC Rampart Range Campus on November 5th 2010.
Spatial technology is found in numerous career fields and career paths. Geographic Information Science involves the use of various cutting-edge computer-aided technologies in areas that include social media technology, mobile media technology, manufacturing, medicine, communications, planning and agriculture not to mention national, state and local government operations. It represents a commercially viable area in which employers require a steady supply of well-qualified, technically able, and skilled practitioners.
Demand for geospatial technicians in the United States and many other world regions is growing faster than the pool of qualified candidates. As a result, two-year colleges are partnering with high schools in designing spatial technology career pathways that lead students through well-planned secondary course sequences and into articulated two-year postsecondary programs. The creation of this secondary-to-postsecondary “pipeline” of students is critical to the success of producing enough qualified technicians to meet industry needs.
Discussion
GeoSearch, Inc. participated on a panel discussion titled “The Importance of Geospatial Technology for Your Future”. Will Mast, a PPCC professor and geospatial consultant, launched the discussion demonstrating how his spatial background has aided his career working with remote sensing technology and GIS software analysis. Jessica Smith, a student at the University of Colorado at Colorado Spring, described her interest in the GIS program and her internship at Sanborn mapping company. She explained that what she does is in demand and that employers are eager to connect with her when she graduates. Richard Serby, President of GeoSearch, Inc. detailed the importance of the Department of Labor’s 2010 decision to recognize geospatial technologies as an industry. Christopher Markuson, a GIS Manager for Pueblo County, described all the challenging and interesting career opportunities that a geospatial background can provide.
For more information on these programs visit www.ppcc.edu
GIS Role in Containing Catastrophic Oil Spill
Saturday, May 1st, 2010
Gulf of Mexico
Last week, a large oil slick emanated from a pipe 50 miles offshore and 5,000 feet underwater in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil is now threatening Louisiana’s fragile coastal wetlands.
NOAA has released a map showing where the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is currently spreading and notes that bad weather continues to influence clean-up measures.
The clean-up measures are the responsibility of BP because a rig owned and operated by Transocean Ltd. exploded, busting a pipe following work on a well for London-based BP PLC. Now the sub contractors to BP have requested GIS Technicians with 1-2 years of experience with ArcMap to make maps from GPS data for the field crews to help in the oil spill clean up off the coast of Louisiana.
An URGENT response went out on twitter @geosearch “Searching for GIS Techs (ArcMap exp) – URGENTLY needed in Louisiana for oil spill clean up. Contact me asap if interested!” about 14 hours ago via TweetDeck.
The GeoSearch, Inc. social media campaign has resulted in a flood of resumes and responses to help. GIS and GPS talent is critical to the response effort. AP has reported that Satellite images show the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is tripling in size.
Putting boots on the ground in mission critical situations can be a big challenge and GIS talent resources will provide the data required to clean up the spill.
GeoSearch at the MAPPS Federal Programs Conference
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
GeoSearch at the Capitol
* The “Making America Prosperous (MAP)” Act, a proposed bill to authorize the “Imagery for the Nation” concept, authorizing a national geospatial image mapping program to provide baseline geographic data for economic development and a variety of other applications;
* A “Digital Coast” Act, fully authorizes the Digital Coast program within NOAA to help America’s fragile oceans, coasts and shorelines by implementing mapping, charting, and other geospatial data, as recommended in several recent commissions, as well as a National Academy of Sciences report;
* The “FLAIR” Act, or Federal Land Asset Inventory Reform Act, H.R. 1520, will create a current, accurate cadastre, or land inventory, of Federal land ownership, as well as consolidate the more than 100 duplicate, inaccurate, obsolete, and non-interoperable land inventories currently maintained by several Federal agencies;
* And the Freedom from Government Competition Act, H.R. 2682 and S. 1167, to codify the “Yellow Pages” test, a simple test that has been applied by Mayors and Governors, both Democrat and Republican, that says if there are private companies to be found in the Yellow Pages providing products or services in the commercial market that the government is also providing, then the service should be subject to market competition to break up the government monopoly and prove a better value to the taxpayer.
Outside the offices
GeoSearch met with Colorado members of Congress and Congressional staff including Charles Cogar, Legislative Assistant in the Office of Representative Mike Coffman. Jimmy Hague, Legislative Assistant in the Office of Senator Mark Udall. Senator Michael Bennet staff members. Marissa Smith, Legislative Assistant in the Office of Representative Betsy Markey. Tommy Walker, Legislative Assistant in the Office of Representative Diana DeGette. Matt Henken, Legislative Assistant in the Office of Representative Ed Perlmutter and we met with Congressman Doug Lamborn.
Geospatial Technology Exhibition
The campus of the U.S. Capitol Compex was the location of our meetings and an exhibition of geospatial technologies showcased and hosted by MAPPS member firms including Merrick & Company, Riegl USA, Trimble, and Woolpert, Inc.
The Geospatial Technology Exhibition was held on the first floor foyer of the Rayburn House Office Building. U.S. Representative James Moran (D-8th District-VA), who represents MAPPS’ headquarters in Reston, VA, was the sponsor of the event.
International Lidar Mapping Forum Day 1
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
2010 ILMF
GeoSearch, Inc. is exhibiting at the ILMF along with 56 other companies that are exhibiting with us. It has had great traffic and has attracted attendance from professionals that have come from all over the world. After spending some time in the Exhibit Hall the Welcoming and Opening Address kicked things off and it previewed that the presentation will cover several aspects of LiDAR as it relates to the end-user. LiDAR uses and applications will be front and center in this forum.
Booth 123
The ASPRS Hot Topics Session went first but the first presentation GeoSearch attended was the Data Collection break out session given and presented by Jamie Young General Manager – LiDAR services team at The Sanborn Map Company. The considerations of new LiDAR sensor technology presentation covered area’s like the learning curve and other challenges inevitable with each update and upgrade in Optech and Leica sensors. However, Sanborn gets great support from both manufactures and they work together to make improvements. It covered Reflectivity. Drop outs due to fresh tar, saturated area’s, and roof pitch among other factors. This presentation also highlighted that new LiDAR sensor technology also provides much better data. Much better. It has lower cost and allows for more applications. The full presentation will be posted later here: http://lidarblog.wordpress.com
James Young
The other session was called How low can you go: Maximum depths achieved with HawkEye II during projects in 2009 presented by Dan Schnurr, Director, Blom Aerofilms Ltd,. Recent advances in Wetland Vegetation Mapping using Green, Waveform LiDAR Amar Nayegandhi, Project Manager, Remote Sensing Specialist, Jacobs-U.S Geological Survey.. Successful delivery of International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO) Order 1B specification coastal survey data using Bathymetric LiDAR presented by Dr Jerry Wilson, Commercial Manager, Fugro-Pelagos, Inc.
In the hall.
We ended the day with the cocktail reception in the Exhibit Hall. Most conversations centered around optimism. Each and every company seemed to have a difficult 2009 and it seems that everyone we talked with, has had an uptick in business and a pipeline of opportunities. 2010 looks like it will be a terrific rebound year. More this this forum later…
GeoSearch and Equiom Team Up to Offer Staffing Services
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010Strategic partnership to offer full service staffing to the geospatial sciences industry
BOULDER – January 19, 2010 – Combining their complementary capabilities, GeoSearch and Equiom announced today the formation of GeoSearch Staffing, a resource placement and staff augmentation service for the geospatial sciences and GIS employer community. This new partnership offers contract personnel recruitment and staffing services using GeoSearch’s access to top geospatial and GIS talent and customer relationships, and Equiom’s world-class employment capabilities. Equiom’s talent placement solution optimizes an organization’s talent supply and streamlines the hiring cycle, while GeoSearch brings its 21 years of experience with the geospatial community to serve as the single point of contact for GeoSearch Staffing services.
“We are very excited to be aligning with Equiom, an experienced leader in providing sustainable teams to technology organizations large and small,” said GeoSearch President Richard Serby. “We have identified the perfect compliment in Equiom and, together, we have assembled an invaluable service to offer employers an efficient and cost-effective option to tap the brightest geospatial resources available.”
“The alliance between Equiom and GeoSearch was a simple decision, one that allows our staff augmentation model to be powered by the GeoSearch recruiting prowess,” said Bassam Saliba, CEO of Equiom. “We are pleased to be teaming with the leading geospatial career source, GeoSearch, Inc. and we are excited to offer this integration to geospatial businesses.”
Personnel hired by GeoSearch Staffing enjoy competitive wages, salaries, and benefits and are assigned to commercial companies and public agencies for specific projects. GeoSearch Staffing employees receive health/medical, 401K, paid time off, and other benefits associated with permanent full-time employment.
About GeoSearch
GeoSearch, Inc. (http://www.geosearch.com) is a personnel recruitment firm specializing in the geospatial sciences and technologies operating since 1989. We offer a wide range of cost-effective and efficient recruitment products and services in geospatial sciences, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS), photogrammetry, and many other related sciences. We recruit technical, management, sales and marketing professionals. Our highly targeted candidate database and long history in the geospatial sciences allow immediate access to qualified professionals.
About Equiom
Equiom, Inc. (www.equiom.com), a software consultancy and intellectual property development firm established in 2001, delivers innovation through an integrated set of services that include talent placement, project outsourcing, business technology consulting, and application & infrastructure security. Our practice helps startups and major corporations identify, plan, develop, and deploy effective technology solutions and services to specific business problems. Equiom’s ability to innovate, as well as execute and deliver, is built on a careful balance between the drive to advance technology, and the need to achieve business goals. We have a proven track record of consistently developing and delivering successful products to market on time and on budget. Our clients include high-profile companies as well as innovative startups. Among them are Microsoft, yahoo!, bSquare, Expedia, Ford, and Real Networks.
For more information about GeoSearch Staffing:
866-962-7772
http://www.geosearchstaffing.com
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
GIS Career Night at the Tivoli Center, Denver CO
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Yesterday, the associations of GIS professionals Rocky Mountain Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), Rocky Mountain Region of American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) and Rocky Mountain Geographic Information Technology Association (GITA) held a GIS CAREER NIGHT at the the Tivoli Student Union which serves as a hub of student activity for the Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State College of Denver and University of Colorado Denver.
The GITA Rocky Mountain Chapter Board of Directors representative Natalie Cutsforth kicked things off with a presentation overview of the Geospatial Information and Technology Association. GITA is an information resource and community for anyone who has a vested interest in the use of geospatial information. The organization provides excellent networking opportunities for geospatial job seekers.
That presentation was followed with an overview of ASPRS by Ms. Linda E. Meyer, the ASPRS Rocky Mountain Region Treasurer. She highlighted their mission to promote the responsible applications of photogrammetry, remote sensing, GIS, and supporting geotechnologies and explained the advantages of membership. She also mentioned that her company GeoEye is growing and that hiring activity is up.
Tony Palizzi, the current URISA Rocky Mountain Chapter president, presented the URISA briefing and moderated the distinguished panel, which included Linda Meyer of GeoEye, Pamela Fromhertz of NOAA, and Richard Serby of GeoSearch.
Those in attendance included employees of the Census Bureau, DOT, Metro State, DU, and Inergraph. There were professional land surveyors, oil and gas technicians, land use GIS, Regional Council of Government members, LiDAR professionals, and dozens of former, current, and future students. The crowd numbered about 50. Last year totaled over 150.
Lengthy discussions ensued on numerous topics. The first discussion revolved around the geospatial career outlook. Richard Serby went over the national unemployment numbers from last year, this year, and the best of years. Colorado unemployment numbers have been better than the national numbers but that isn’t to say that the local economy hasn’t suffered. “Let’s talk about the good news.” he said, “I’m done talking about the bad news.” The good news is that companies, agencies, and the federal government have started to add staff. “It will be a long road to reach the optimal unemployment number of 5%.” he said. But now that demand for geospatial applications is on the rise, more jobs need to be filled and that is chipping away at the 10% unemployment number where we currently sit.
Several questions on internships followed. Most of the panel agreed that for students that need to gain experience, an internship can be invaluable. Tips to negotiate a paid internship were discussed and the value of an unpaid internship is not to be overlooked for getting your foot in the door. Many colleges are helping students make this happen. To see more on this topic read:The First Rung of the Ladder… Many on the panel started their geospatial career with a paid internship.
Before the networking session the topics included citizenship, clearances, overqualified objections, the new energy economy, and networking your way into the seat that you want. We hope to network with you at this event next year! If you attended, we would love your feedback.
Excellent timing!
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
The geospatial community is turning attention away from last week’s Location Intelligence 2009 conference held in Denver to the GEOINT 2009 Symposium in San Antonio, Texas. These events provide tremendous networking opportunities for both attendees and exhibitors. They highlight the advances in geospatial technology. These events showcase cutting edge technologies that significantly improve performance, productivity, and geospatial ability across industry, academia, government, professional organizations and individual stakeholders.
These particular conferences seemed to have timed the market during an uptick. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged closer to the 10000 level this week and economists report rising confidence about an economic recovery. Geospatial companies like DigitalGlobe made news when it’s new WorldView-2 satellite launched into space last week from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Perenco (an oil and gas exploration and development company) just contracted Fugro EarthData, Inc. to provide detailed topographic mapping of a proposed oil pipeline route in northern Peru. Airport technology company Faith Group LLC including Woolpert Inc. was awarded a $378,000 contract to conduct an information technology master plan for the Cleveland Airport System (CAS).
The geospatial community is well positioned to capture its fair share of the economic rebound. I should caution that although many economists now believe the national recession has ended, experts also think the economic rebound will be drawn out over many months. Still, according to The Monster Employment Index, the fall job search season is kicking into high gear at all levels from entry-level jobs on up to management-trainee, technical and professional full-time careers. The Index rose in August, seeing its highest monthly rate of improvement in four years. It dipped slightly in September but the October numbers are expected to rise again.
This ongoing economic volatility will continue and it will result in new challenges for organizations that need to be aggressively courting the best talent available. Organizations will need an updated plan and strategy for recruiting talent as the economy turns around. Experienced, targeted, community specific recruiting firms will be more valuable in planning and developing the next workforce than ever before. The geospatial community is showing off some exciting technology and the development has created some outstanding career opportunities. Excellent timing!
The Monster Employment Index is a monthly gauge of U.S. online job demand based on a real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of corporate career Web sites and job boards, including Monster. http://about-monster.com/employment-index. This month, the GeoSearch job board http://www.geosearch.com had the highest monthly rate of job posting increases since August 2007.
