I entered the industry in 1990 after attending the Surveying and Photogrammetry program at Cal State Fresno that was part of their Civil Engineering Department. My first job was with USGS, so I got exposure to the government side of the profession. I then moved into the private sector when an opportunity developed that allowed me to work in data acquisition, primarily GPS Control aerial triangulation which was what I was interested in. In 2006, having spent 16 years in the profession, I was looking for a way to concentrate more on my private life. As I was an external advisor for the PENN State online learning program and there was a need at this time to add some remote sensing, particularly LIDAR, to their course offerings, I joined Penn State Geospatial Program faculty. This gave me the opportunity to focus on my personal goals while allowing me to continue contributing to the mapping profession. So after having been fortunate to have had a very fulfilling career in industry getting to work on such projects as the North Carolina flood plain mapping after Hurricane Floyd, and then being very involved in the Katrina response while at URS, I am still able to contribute to the profession through education.
However, I sometimes have mixed feelings about leaving the private sector where there is a lot of focus on using the latest and greatest in technology, but even as technology moves forward, the basic fundamentals of photogrammetry and mapping still need to be taught and I feel this is what my mission needs to be. Moving into academia allows me to use my knowledge and skills to seed the futures and careers of those younger and newer to the profession.
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