Every week I get a phone call, email, fax, or some kind of inquiry asking who I am, what do I do, or why am I doing this?

I thought I'd take an opportunity to introduce myself to you and answer a few of these questions.

I'm a full time GIS analyst (at the time I wrote this) for an Environmental Consulting firm in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada as well as the principal and sole person inbvolved with Spatial Graphics. I hold a B.Sc. in Geography from the University of Victoria where I majored in Urban Geography with an emphasis on quantatative techniques. My day do day activities involve working with the following software products: ArcView, Spatial Analyst, PC Arc Info, Mapinfo, Genamap, AutoCad Map and others from time to time.

Some notable projects that I have been involved with over the years include:

  • Mapping and system development for a custom hydrology information system of the Mackenzie Delta
  • Shellfish and Aquaculture mapping for a custom system for the entire coast of British Columbia
  • Mapping and development of a Kelp inventory system for coastal B.C.
  • Oil spill sensitivity mapping of the Canadian Arctic for Environment Canada
  • Mapping for the Arctic Sailing Directions directory
  • Delivered custom desktop mapping systems & database training
  • Conversion of hundreds of Terrain maps for the B.C. Geological Survey
  • Earthquake Hazard Mapping of Victoria and the Lower mainland of B.C.
  • Mapping and analysis for numerous pipeline related EIA projects in Alberta
  • Development of the urban capacity inventory and parcel mapping for the Victoria CRD
  • Mapping, plan and profile drawings for a natural gas pipeline through the city of Victoria
  • Numerous other projects
I am also interested in Marketing and web development. I have set up and maintained several web sites including the site for the AXYS Group http://www.axys.com , B.C. Tourism Jobs site at http://bcjobs.virtualave.net .  I set up the first web site for a government agency in the Barbados, http://espu.gov.bb and maintain a site for Softco Engineering Systems http://www.softcosys.com

Spatial Graphics was started as a pilot project to help me develop my web development and web marketing skills. Essentially a working project which has taken up hundreds of hours of my time. The project has been so successful that I am now in touch with GIS professionals in over 80 countries and get in eccess of 300 emails a month of which almost all of it is responded to (unless it gets miss-placed or wrongly filtered!). I regularly get mail and phone calls from places such as the UK, Saudi Arabia, Australia etc... and have had software demos, books, literature and more sent to me for review. The site will soon be moving to http://news.geocomm.com and will hopefully grow and offer the GIS community even more resources.

Some past jobs have included working for:

  • B.C. Ministry of Environment
  • UMA Engineering
  • Landis Geographics
  • Wright, Parry, Taylor, Fuller Surveying/Engineering
When I'm not at the computer (genreally about 12 hours a day) I am married, have 2 children aged 2 and 4 (both born on St. Patrick's Day!). I try to golf, read anything that I can get my hands on (this drives my wife nuts!), play baseball or soccer with my son, or hang out at one of our fantastic local beaches.

So, hopefully this gives you an idea as to what I do.
I can always be reached at gletham@geocomm.com