It's been over a month now at the job and I really like it so far. I support the Environmental Affairs Division with map production as well as maintain a state-wide Texas outfall database for all 25 districts. I help support with GIS issues like connectivity to restricted databases, general GIS questions, creation of models using model builder, GPS maintenance and support. I get to do a lot of different things at my job so no day is ever the same. I am also glad that I support the Environmental Affairs Division in their environmental impact statements by creating maps for their responses to scope, technical reports and presentations because they are from varied backgrounds. The groups I help are Archaeology, Biology, Geology, History and others from the Project Management & Project Delivery group. I'll keep updating with projects and skills I have learned along the way.
I should have posted this as soon as I got the job, but it was hectic around the holidays and it just slipped my mind. Well, I went to a Centex GIS (Central Texas GIS) meeting, it's was my third meeting. I have meet a lot of great people from the meetings and made great networking contacts. At the second Centex meeting, I met Alex, who worked at an environmental consulting company and thought he could be a contact for Jason, my husband.
I exchanged information with him and then bumped into him again at the third meeting I went to. He had announced that they were looking to fill a position. I sent him my resume and he said I'd be contacted if they liked me. During all of this, another contact I made, Hugh had called me to say a friend of his owned an environmental consulting company an was looking to hire somebody. I was waiting on him to see what would happen, but I got a call from Alex's contact. I was chosen, it's a six month contract with definite possibility for an extension. I'm hoping it will become a permanent position eventually. I'm super happy and looking forward to learning everything I can while I'm there. I am being contracted out to TxDOT, Texas Department of Transportation in their Environmental Affairs Division as a GIS technician. I am in charge of map production for the science divisions, supporting the Biologists, Archaeologists and Historians and creating maps for them. I also have to manage the Storm water database that we collect data for. After responding to many GIS internship announcements from the ACC GIS website I finally caught a break. I had applied for a few GIS internships, a position as a market analyst utilizing GIS, Travis County Balcones Preserve doing soil and environmental analysis, a company called DrillingInfo doing oil and gas leases research and a few others. I also had a contact at Survey and Mapping (SAM,Inc.) and was waiting for a response from them as far as having an initial meeting. I got called to interview at DrillingInfo, the interview was something I was expecting an actual GIS interview to go. They put me on a computer to see what kind of skills I had and if I could draw a polygon from only a visual representation. I thought they liked me, but I didn't hear from them for that particular job. I got a response from SAM, Inc. to meet on site with my contact there I was introduced to on Linkedin. I met with the Aerial Mapping Department Manager and the Production Manager and it was work experience for me and lending an extra hand for them. They offered me a paid internship position and I accepted! Have been working there about a month, let's see where this takes me.
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AuthorMy name is Diana Martin and I am currently pursuing a Geographic Information Systems, (GIS) certificate and I wanted to share adventures and experiences with GIS. Archives
January 2013
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