Michael Johnson works on the recruitment HR side, and is a tireless “miracle worker” who ensures that high-caliber students are brought into our temporary family. Melissa Quintana is new to the team, but threw herself into the mix with the same interest and excitement that I felt two short years ago. Pete Hollis is one of the nicest and most sincere human beings I’ve ever met, not to mention extremely competent. Terri probably knows by name and is liked by every single Esri employee. Terri Bliss has been working with the Student Assistants for 5 years, and has been at Esri for over 20 years. We have an incredible team that works with the students. Lucky for them, I’m not the only Esri staff on hand. I try to explain how amazing this opportunity to be at the User Conference is for them, both personally and professionally. They are hungry, curious, and relatively speaking, young. This year’s group of students is as strong and promising as I remember my group being. Even as I write these words I am glancing at the calendar, marking off the days until next year’s conference. I remember what this conference meant to me, and what it still means to me. This time I arrive as a staff member working with the Student Assistants. The smile never left my face.įast forward to 2014, when I am a proud Esri employee working in Support, and I once again attend the User Conference. Learning what are going to be the next big things. Finally understanding how products worked. We were all on the same level, gorging on new technologies, meeting new people, buzzing through the exhibit halls and corridors in a constant state of GIS mania. I don’t think my feet touched the ground all week. I overwhelmed with the excitement and knowledge of so many GIS professionals converging in one place. Understandably, this was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The Student Assistants are seen as the next generation of GIS, and Esri empowers them through this conference to connect with their future. I was one of 60 lucky students from around the world who were selected to attend and work at the conference. Let’s step back in time to 2012, when I was a simple Student Assistant, arriving in San Diego for the first time from grad school in Chicago. It can be thought of as many things, like the best place for technical training, the ultimate spot for amazing collaboration and networking opportunities, or as my wife affectionately refers to it, GIS Gone Wild. Second, the Esri User Conference is unlike any conference anyone’s ever been to before… ever. Actually, GIS probably began about 1 million years ago when early man began to recognize the best hunting and gathering locations in his domain. What people once did with quills and sextants is now done on computers and in clouds. Outside of work, in my non-technical Clark Kent life, whenever I tell people about the Esri User Conference, the first thing they say is: “That doesn’t sound like any conference I’ve ever been to.” They typically follow-up with something like: “What’s GIS?” Over the years, I’ve been perfecting my responses to both these statements, but I wanted to take this opportunity to truly do the topic justice.įirst, GIS is like post-modern cartography.
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