Ethan Geisler Joins Our Geospatial Team

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Geospatial andgt; The Layer File andgt; Ethan Geisler Joins Our Geospatial Team

We are thrilled to welcome Ethan Geisler to the Maurer-Stutz Geospatial Services (MSGS) team!

Ethan joins us as a Geospatial Specialist with a fresh degree in Geography from Illinois State University, and he’s eager to hit the ground running. With a background in GIS software like ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online, Ethan brings a well-rounded skill set, honed during his internship with FEMA where he developed a Tornado Awareness dashboard application. This real-world experience will help him seamlessly integrate into our projects, which often involve critical data and mapping needs.

What sets Ethan apart is his passion for using GIS to solve real-world challenges, a trait he demonstrated in his final project at ISU, where he worked on a pedestrian safety study using Survey123. Outside of work, Ethan’s organizational leadership skills shine as the former President of ISU’s Music Business Organization, where he organized events and led a team of fellow students—skills that will serve him well as he collaborates with our team on diverse geospatial projects. He also plays drums and is deeply invested in the Game of Thrones franchise.

Ethan will be working closely with our team to support infrastructure mapping, perform spatial analysis, and contribute to the development of tailored GIS solutions for our clients. We’re excited to see his fresh perspective and strong attention to detail make an impact as we continue to grow our geospatial services.

Welcome aboard, Ethan!

It’s Conference Season Already! (PART 2)

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Geospatial andgt; The Layer File andgt; It’s Conference Season Already! (PART 2)

it’s September.

Which means the fall conference season is here. While our young team is still deciding which organizations to support and be a part of, there are a few that are a no brainer: ILGISA, IACE, EPN just to name three. Last week, Baylor and I both visited separate conferences to see if they would be good conferences to attend or even exhibit at in future years. Below is Baylor’s Summary of GEOGRAPH and Micah’s summary of FOSS4G NA was earlier this week.

Maurer-Stutz Geospatial Services Attends the 2024 GEOGRAPH User Conference: A New Chapter in Fiber Network Management

Maurer-Stutz Geospatial Services (MSGS) had the privilege of attending the 2024 GEOGRAPH User Conference in Greenville, SC from September 9-11. This year’s event brought together industry leaders, software developers, and telecommunications experts, providing us with invaluable insights into the latest advancements in fiber network management, broadband mapping, and digital infrastructure planning.

The conference, hosted by GEOGRAPH Technologies, gave us the opportunity to further explore CrescentLink, the powerful fiber network management solution that we’ve been integrating into our geospatial services. Through this collaboration with GEOGRAPH, MSGS is excited to expand our fiber solution offerings, reinforcing our commitment to delivering comprehensive, cutting-edge GIS support for fiber providers.

Highlights from the Event:

  • GEOGRAPH’s Vision for the Future: CEO Bruce Smith shared an exciting update on GEOGRAPH’s growth and future innovations during the opening keynote. With new developments on the horizon for CrescentLink, we look forward to continuing our partnership, enhancing our service offerings to ensure our clients can take full advantage of the CrescentLink platform.

  • Broadband Mapping and Digital Divide Solutions: One of the most impactful sessions featured Jim Stritzinger, the South Carolina Broadband Director, who shared how their state is leading the way in broadband mapping and BEAD fund management to bridge the digital divide. This insight fuels our passion for working with underserved fiber providers, ensuring communities across Illinois and beyond benefit from the same cutting-edge fiber management tools.

  • CrescentLink for ArcGIS Pro: With CrescentLink’s move from desktop to ArcGIS Pro, MSGS is eager to help our clients transition smoothly. Sessions led by Grey Pittman and DJ Henrique offered best practices and valuable tips on how to fully leverage CrescentLink within ArcGIS Pro. With MSGS’s expertise in enterprise GIS, we are well-positioned to support our clients in making this shift and maximizing the benefits of this next-generation software.

  • Engaging One-on-One with GEOGRAPH Experts: A unique feature of this year’s conference was the GEOGRAPH Tech Talk, where we had the opportunity to engage in in-depth, one-on-one conversations with the CrescentLink development team. Our team was able to discuss current and future needs for our clients, planning how we can continue to innovate and provide exceptional geospatial services in fiber network management.

Looking Ahead:

At MSGS, our focus has always been on providing specialized geospatial solutions that turn our clients’ visions into reality. Partnering with GEOGRAPH Technologies allows us to expand our offerings to include enhanced fiber network deployment, conversion, and ongoing management services—ensuring our clients can optimize their fiber networks from the ground up.

The 2024 GEOGRAPH User Conference affirmed that fiber networks are the digital backbone of tomorrow’s infrastructure. By combining MSGS’s deep expertise in GIS with CrescentLink’s powerful tools, we’re setting a new standard for fiber management, particularly for small and mid-sized providers who may lack access to these advanced solutions.

As we look ahead, we’re excited to continue working closely with GEOGRAPH, offering a seamless experience for our clients in deploying and managing fiber networks. This collaboration allows us to deliver tailored, scalable solutions, empowering providers to expand their network capabilities, enhance customer satisfaction, and ultimately stay ahead in the rapidly evolving telecommunications industry.

For more information on how MSGS and CrescentLink can transform your fiber network management, visit our website or schedule a call with one of our experts today.

It’s Conference Season Already! (PART 1)

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Geospatial andgt; The Layer File andgt; It’s Conference Season Already! (PART 1)

it’s September.

Which means the fall conference season is here. While our young team is still deciding which organizations to support and be a part of, there are a few that are a no brainer: ILGISA, IACE, EPN just to name three. Last week, Baylor and I both visited separate conferences to see if they would be good conferences to attend or even exhibit at in future years. Below is Micah’s summary of FOSS4G NA. Baylor’s Summary of GEOGRAPH will be next.

FOSS4G North America

The 2024 Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) North America conference took place in St. Louis, Missouri, from September 9-11. It attracted a wide variety of geospatial professionals, developers, and enthusiasts to collaborate and explore the transformative potential of open-source geospatial technologies. A key focus of the conference was on democratizing access to geospatial tools, emphasizing how open-source solutions can empower individuals, small businesses, and organizations.

I (Micah) actually did my Master’s thesis on FOSS4G software in the Enterprise GIS realm. So, even with spending 90% of my career in Esri software, I have a working knowledge of the players and platforms. Additionally, the STL is too close not to attend such a notable and relevant conference. Aside from the agenda looking great, I wanted to meet a few of the people I saw chatting about the conference online. Unfortunately, due to scheduling issues and family commitments, I could only attend on Wednesday. Still, I wanted to know where FOSS4G as an industry is compared to the proprietary behemoth with whom we are admittedly a part of their partnership network.

Sessions

The sessions I leaned towards spoke of web mapping, data, and enterprise systems. I learned that there is a working community group at the the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to develop standards and guidelines for creating a new standardized and easy map HTML element for display in modern browsers. The demonstration of MapML showed tiling, full screen, as well as pop-ups interacting with the OGC services from GeoServer via custom CSS. Noting stated about other protocols.

What I did learn about Parquet and GeoParquet is that I should be using it. Not so much Crunchy Bridge analytics, I don’t have that much data and it’s too onerous to port what I do have.

Although, the Overture Map Foundation is of interest, I’m skeptical. My very distilled explanation is that it starts with Open Street Map data, enhances with TomTom data and a dash of Foursquare into it, and provides it to whoever wants to download. I do want to critically look at the data for the small towns that are our clients. Also, this may be a great place to start to learn GeoParquet seeing that is how they deliver the data. Regardless of the quality of data, it was a fantastic presentation by Steven Pousty.

After lunch, and learning that Mapillary is actually owned by Meta now (Hello 2020), I heard the best quote from the developer of startup GeoBlaze during a live demo on Hotel WiFi: “It’s so fast, you think it’s not working”, neat tool, don’t know what it’s for. I tried to learn how to scrape geodata, but was quickly lost in the technical details.

The final presentation I went to was to see the evolution of GeoMoose 4. This fast, lightweight web viewer now works serverless. Dan Little showed the snazzy demo published from a public Google Drive folder. The application has quite the modern ‘feel’ and read geo layers right from within the folder.

Thoughts

Here’s a Hot Take: Linux and other FOSS may run the world during apocalypse, but that's not now.

I believe in the idealism and the core principles of Free and Open Source Software, but I don’t think they’re practical in real life (Insert your token statistic here of what already runs on FOSS). Believe me, as a card-carrying GenXer, I LOVE the idea of going against the grain. I push back whenever I can, I listen to STP on 11, I don’t match my socks, and drive an old jeep because I choose to, don’t you dare tell me what to do. That mentality is all well and good when you are your own boss or there is a principled leadership decision to use FOSS. As a consultant using someone else’s money to build a business that plays nicely with a local governments’ GIS and a DOT’s project requirements, I need to use the proprietary software that they are or tell us to.

Here’s a hard truth, using FOSS, and specifically FOSS4G, is not easy. I still don’t see a complete out-of-the-box FOSS enterprise GIS solution that can compete with ArcGIS Enterprise. This discrepancy is especially accentuated when 99% of your clients use Esri. Do not misunderstand, sometimes Esri is the bane of my existence. I can rant and rail with the best of the trolls, but this is business. I need to prove my excellence in the board room and on proposals in the most efficient way possible. Everyone loves to hate on success while they quietly try and copy it.

I will continue to keep an eye on FOSS4G. I promise to keep my version of QGIS updated. I will not roll my eyes at open-source projects. I will continue to push for open standards and data. I also appreciate the community built around FOSS4G. Everyone loves an underdog.

A Map, a Move, and a Mission

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Geospatial andgt; The Layer File andgt; A Map, A Move, and A Mission

During an evening newscast in 1969, Walter Cronkite coined Chattanooga, Tennessee, as the “Dirtiest City in America”. This moniker was probably not that far from the truth, as the City’s historic Iron Foundries (dating back to the Civil War) and industrial sites polluted to air and water. However, since then, the City has completely shed that title. It is consistently ranked as the best place to live in Tennessee and named the “Best Town Ever” by Outdoor Magazine. It’s a hub for insurance giants (BCBS and UNUM), startups (specifically Quantum computing research), electric vehicle manufacturing (Volkswagen North America), and a thriving logistics network along a major interstate junction (I-75 andamp; I-24).

Recently, the City embarked on an ambitious plan to become a National Park City. As part of this initiative, Charlie Hale (GIS Director at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga), was asked to develop an inspiring map that would chart a “vision” for Chattanooga’s Park System. This article is definitely worth a read itself (that map went on to be a winner at the 2023 ESRI UC map contest), but one of the things I found most interesting was actually the 1911 John Nolen Map.

Credit: John Nolen Papers, #2903. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

Credit: John Nolen Papers, #2903. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

I think what I love about this map most is how simply it calls the viewer to a vision. There are only two colors: Black cadastral lines and Green for Parks/Greenways. Readers are immediately drawn to the most prominent geologic features of the area (Tennessee River, Lookout/Signal Mountain, and Missionary Ridge) and how the park system can work with them. Upon closer inspection, the designer has connected the larger park areas with Greenways along existing major thoroughfares – a call to the current day Complete Streets movement. Small details – like the map being rotated to the street grid and the hilly, forested areas hatched – enhance the map’s purpose and vision.

This map does one thing really well – it sets a vision for a thriving park system in a town plagued (at the time) by industrial waste and smog. I can put myself in the eyes of a resident and say “yeah, I can get behind this vision”. It may have taken over 100 years (and maybe a few decades more to fully “realize”) but I’d call its mission a success.

If you haven’t guessed already, I love talking about (okay, more like fawning over)andnbsp;the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. My family and I love this area of the Country and the sense of place that is present here. It’s always been our dream to make the “big move” and raise our family here. Well, that dream officially became a reality 2 weeks ago. Thankfully, the move went very smooth and the only “casualty” was a broke salt-shaker!

Although the move may be a bit bittersweet in some ways (missing those impromptu office chats with the great team at Maurer-Stutz), we see this is a great opportunity to expand the mission and vision of Maurer-Stutz Geospatial Services to clients throughout the Tennessee and the Southeast. I recently attended the GEOGRAPH User Conference in Greenville, South Carolina. Be on the lookout for that blog soon!

The Southeast is booming, and MSGS will be there to help communities, businesses, and stakeholders meet their geospatial needs.

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