2017 GIS in the Rockies presentation

1. CATCH 22:
Bridging the experience gap between
education and career through GIS internships
A COLLABORATIVE PRESENTATION BY
ELIZABETH TULANOWSKI, CSU AND FRCC
SOPHIA LINN, CSU
JENNIFER MUHA, FRCC
GIS IN THE ROCKIES, SEPT. 21, 2017

2. MEET THE PRESENTERS
• Elizabeth Tulanowski, Geospatial Centroid at CSU
and FRCC
• Sophia Linn, Geospatial Centroid at CSU
• Jennifer Muha, Front Range Community College

3. THE CATCH 22
It’s hard to get a job without experience and
it’s hard to get experience without a job
• Tremendous need for students to get real-world
experience

4. OUR SOLUTION
• Internships are the bridge to employment
• We can develop, build, and manage these for our
students
• Transition between school and career…while still
in (the supportive environment of) school

5. WHAT IS THE GEOSPATIAL CENTROID?
• History and Context
• Purpose and Benefits
• How it works
Workspace | Commitment | Management | Software

6. PROJECTS - Centroid South at FRCC
• Boulder County Winter Raptor Survey, FRCC
• Update a paper-based raptor survey with Survey 1-2-3
• “I can confidently say it’s been a really valuable learning experience
for us all, and something that probably would not have happened
without the Geospatial Centroid creating the opportunity …. I’m
hoping it continues so I can keep getting better at the ‘project
management’ side of the collaboration.”
• Jefferson County Conservation District
• Digitizing fuel treatments

7. PROJECTS - Centroid at CSU
• Alternative Transportation (link)
• National Park Service: RMNP campgrounds (link)
• Mountain Sentinels: Story Maps
• Colorado View: Grazing lands, invasive species, UV-B radiation (link)
• The Nature Conservancy: Global Lands Team
• National Park Service: Land Resources Division
• Secondary Cities, U.S. Department of State (link, GeoNode)
• Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML)
• Public Health: census data/incidents
• Aspen Valley Land Trust
• Mountain Studies Institute

8. OBSERVATIONS
RESULTS
SUCCESSES
• CSU Centroid by the numbers:
•79 interns since fall semester 2010
•17 in spring 2017 (too many!)
•10 currently
• Success stories
• Anecdotal evidence

9. Intern Comments
Emma Giles
Open Water Foundation
Fort Collins, CO
GIS Software Developer
The Centroid taught me how to solve real-world problems with spatial
technologies. In GIS classes, the example datasets and lab work are pre-
designed to teach us a set of analysis skills. The Centroid projects were
not pre-designed with perfect datasets and a step-by-step tutorial - the
Centroid is where we learned critical thinking skills and applied spatial
sciences. Advanced critical thinking is the most-used and most-valued skill
at my job today (how to solve a problem that has never been solved
before). Thank you Geospatial Centroid.

10. Intern Comments
John Commissaris
Data Analyst
Peak Vista Community Health Centers
My experience with the Centroid helped me learn how to use GIS data and software to better
understand public health issues. I was able to develop skills in generating and manipulating
health data, grow relationships with professionals actively using GIS for health research projects,
and vastly improve my cartographic skills for professional presentations to stakeholders. I now
am leading the development of a dashboard that displays maps of our clinic locations and which
have the highest proportion of Opiates subscriptions, and am also working to compare location
of patient's residence to Opiate subscriptions with other confounding factors. The skills
permitting me to complete this task are directly related to my time, experiences, and guidance
that I received at Colorado State University's Geospatial Centroid.
Other Comments ~ The Centroid was truly the only place for students interested in using GIS as
a framework for health analyses. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to work with Sophia and
the rest of the Centroidians, learn from them, and apply those skills in a health-related
professional capacity today.

11. Intern Comments
Chrissy Esposito (and Karam Ahmad)
Data Visualization and Policy Analyst
Colorado Health Institute
The Centroid prepared me for my job by introducing me to a wide range
of projects that expanded my skillset as GIS analyst. I gained experience
in performing spatial and network analyses as well as preparing me to
teach others how to use the software. The Centroid introduced me to
ArcGIS Online, which is an interface I use at work frequently.
Overall, working at the Centroid gave me several skills that I've been
able to apply to my work. For example, helping our economic director in
understanding how many people in each Colorado County are within a 45
minute drive of a hospital, and using that data to create a competition
index of hospitals for the state.

12. Intern Comments
Karam Ahmad
Research Analyst
Colorado Health Institute
My first job out of grad school was as a gis/ research analyst at USDA APHIS working on a
geospatial analysis of environmental factors and how they contribute to the introduction of avian
influenza on organic chicken farms. The centroid equipped me with being familiar with many
different GIS tools not only arcmap, but story maps and other visualization tools that came in
handy. In fact, you (Sophia) even gave me great guidance on what data sets to first tackle as I
began that job. At CHI currently, I work as a research analyst full time with Chrissy (woo go
former interns!) on a suite of different public health projects. These range from behavioral health
to epi projects to climate change and anything in between.
My experience building our website, doing graphics and managing social media and
communications materials has been paramount in my work at CHI as there is a huge focus on
communication here. At the centroid we emphasized the marriage of communicating things well
and making sense of the world through mapping/analyses. This is a core belief at CHI and one
that the centroid helped me develop.
I currently also am using my GIS skills many of which I learned at the centroid or from other
centroid interns/staff to make substance abuse maps, hepatitis C maps and Chrissy and I are
exploring other uses for GIS in the world of health policy.

13. Intern Comments
Max Cook
Cartographer and Database Technician
The Nature Conservancy - Colorado
Being an intern at the Centroid was pivotal in my growth as a student at
Colorado State University. The internship program offered an opportunity to
develop technical GIS skills and knowledge alongside peers, while also being
exposed to project management, team/network building, and critical thinking as
tools to solve problems. The diversity of projects and partnerships exposed me to
the wide applications of GIS and spatial thinking and helped me develop a broad
toolbox to bring to TNC. The experiences, friends, and mentors I gained from my
time as an intern truly set me up for success upon graduating from CSU.
It is so good to see the Centroid continue to grow. The amount of partnerships
you are developing, projects that are coming through, and general education and
community building that goes on there is truly inspiring and will continue to help
students who are willing to engage with the process. I learned that you can get
out of the internship program what you put in and that if you are willing, there
will be opportunities for you to learn and grow.

14. Intern Success
(too busy to respond!)
Brandon Lemire
Remote Sensing Manager
National Park Service (Denver)

15. LESSONS LEARNED
• Project Management
• Organization
• Communication
• Coordination
•Paid vs. Unpaid:
• How $$ changes the energy

16. DISCUSSION
• Observations about the GIS job hunting process
• As a student or recent grad?
• As an employer?
• What do applicants need?
• How can we meet those needs through a combination of
education and hands-on experience?

17. GET INVOLVED!
• Students
• Institutions
• Clients, local agencies
• Centroid Intern Partnerships (hand out)

18. CONTACT INFO
• Sophia Linn, Geospatial Centroid at CSU
• Sophia.linn@colostate.edu
• Jennifer Muha, Front Range Community College
• Jennifer.muha@frontrange.edu
• Elizabeth Tulanowski, Geospatial Centroid and FRCC
• Elizabeth.Tulanowski@frontrange.edu