NEWS
GSS SPOTLIGHT!
BRE TEWS
What is your education and/or professional background?
I am a senior, undergraduate student at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota majoring in Environmental Biology with a minor in Zoology.
What led you to GIS? More specifically, how did you get to Saint Mary's University of Minnesota (SMUMN) in Winona?
I was first informed about Geospatial Services while taking a GIS class here on campus. Afterwards, a fellow student and professor urged me to apply to GSS and become a member of the team, which I was lucky enough to be accepted into. The workers and atmosphere within the GSS Watter’s building, where I am stationed, is what makes the job so special and truly a great experience.
As for finding my journey to Saint Mary’s campus, I knew this school would give me a great opportunity to learn and grow in an environmental setting. I didn’t always know that I wanted to be an Environmental Biology major, but I knew no matter where my path would lead me, Saint Mary’s campus would help me achieve my dreams.
Explain briefly a project at GSS you've done that contributed to your overall knowledge and educational experience.
A project that I am currently working on is called ‘40 mile’ which takes place in Alaska. I am tasked with reshaping rivers and adding polygons that consist of land formations, such as sand/gravel shores, riparian vegetation, and any other unknown land formations within the area. In past work, I have also been tasked to map and attribute wetlands in numerous other states around the U.S.
How do you see GIS fitting into your future?
My hope for the future is to continue furthering my education by attending graduate school and getting a Master’s in Marine Biology. Using my knowledge from GSS would be immensely beneficial in any possible field work opportunities, as well as technological skills that I will need to apply to my future job. I may not be directly using GIS mapping software, but the hard technical skills that I received from working at GSS will be incredibly useful to carry over into the field I will be working in.
Where can we find you outside of GSS?
Outside of working at GSS I am always looking for activities to take part in. I love traveling, hiking, and socializing, but the majority of what I do in my free time pertains to being outdoors.
GSS SPOTLIGHT!
ALY DEEGAN
What is your education and/or professional background?
I am a senior criminal justice major at Saint Mary's University. I graduated from Saint Peter High School in Saint Peter, Minnesota in 2017.
What led you to GIS? More specifically, how did you get to Saint Mary's University of Minnesota (SMUMN) in Winona?
I was told about GIS by a friend that worked at GSS during his time at SMU. He gave me a small rundown on what GIS is and what GSS does and I went out on a whim, applied and was lucky enough to get a job. As for Saint Mary's I had a list of schools I wanted to visit and the moment I stepped onto the Saint Mary's campus I fell in love. The nature, the atmosphere and the people here made me 100% sure that SMU was where I wanted to be for my 4 years of school.
Explain briefly a project at GSS you've done that contributed to your overall knowledge and educational experience.
I have been working on a project for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in North Dakota updating the National Wetland Inventory (NWI). I have been mapping and attributing wetland and waterbody features to provide locations for habitat as well as waterfowl population estimates.
How do you see GIS fitting into your future?
I am hoping to someday work as law enforcement for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MNDNR) so learning and knowing the skills that would allow me to use GIS within that field will be beneficial. Even if I do not directly work with GIS in the future, learning it has allowed me to expand my knowledge within the field and has given me insight into the world of maps and databases that I never would have gotten without working here at GSS.
Where can we find you outside of GSS?
Outside of GSS, you can find me on a nice day running around Lake Winona, going on a hike with my roommates or playing soccer with the SMU club soccer team. You can also find me in Bemidji, MN shooting trap with friends or out on the lake catching some fish. I love being outside so whenever I'm not doing homework I try my best to get out and be active.
Robertson to present at EPA event
On Thursday, March 4, GeoSpatial Services (GSS) Director Andy Robertson will be presenting at a nationwide Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) virtual event showcasing a diverse array of wetlands and wetlands research endeavors across the country. The theme of the event, “Water, Wetlands, and Life,” highlights how interdependent and inseparable water and wetlands are, and the vital role wetlands serve in storing, filtering, and releasing water where and when needed.
The event is also celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, an intergovernmental treaty adopted in February 1971 to recognize the international importance of the conservation and wise use of wetlands. Robertson’s presentation, based on a current GSS project, is titled “Where Traditional Knowledge and Western Science Meet: Wetland Restoration in the Shakopee Sioux Community.” GSS has been working with the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community in central Minnesota to identify and quantify existing wetlands on their tribal lands and to apply appropriate wetland assessment methodologies. The community’s goal is to advance and refine an existing wetland program in order to better monitor, maintain, and restore wetland resources across their traditional lands and surrounding watersheds.
GSS Team Heads West
In late-September and early-October, three GSS staff members (Andy Nadeau, Peter McColl, and Matt Hogan) travelled to Utah for 12 days to complete a wetland mapping fieldwork trip. GSS staff complete fieldwork for almost all mapping projects the group takes on for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) program. Current mapping efforts in Utah stretch across much of the western portion of the state and are spread across two projects.
These field trips are crucial for GSS analysts, as they allow researchers to verify whether the geologic features, soil types, and plant communities observed on aerial imagery is accurate with what is actually occurring on the ground. The lessons learned while in Utah will be documented and provided to all analysts and students working on the project at SMUMN, so that all features are mapped to a high level of accuracy.
Nadeau, McColl, and Hogan travelled over 2,500 miles by truck throughout the course of the trip, and visited over 250 checksites where they verified unique ground signatures and waterbodies. These checksites were typically located on Federal and State lands in areas of the state that are rarely visited by non-residents. Federal lands crossed included Zion National Park, the Sawtooth, Uinta, and Wasatch National Forests, and many National Conservation Areas. Highlights of the trip included routes through Zion National Park, various historic springs and seeps in the remote Utah mountains, salt flats and salt lakes, and rugged landscapes across many Wilderness and roadless areas of the state.
GeoSpatial Services Awarded New Projects
GSS was recently awarded new work from their partners/clients in multiple areas of the country.
New Alaska project areas are shown in yellow.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wetlands mapping group of GSS recently bid on and won numerous projects in both Alaska and the Lower 48 states. The group will take on additional project work in Idaho and 5 new project areas in Alaska. This is in addition to the current mapping work going on in Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, California, Idaho, New Mexico, Utah, and Alaska. The BLM group within GSS currently has 5 full-time staff members and 17 students engaged in landscape-level wetland mapping under the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).
Counties in red are new areas where GSS will be mapping wetlands.
Another group within GSS, also working with the USFWS on NWI wetland mapping in North Dakota, has recently been awarded contracts to complete mapping across 14 additional counties in central North Dakota. The GSS North Dakota group will work towards the completion of this project over the next 18 months. After its completion, the GSS mapping teams will have completed mapping across most of the state. The North Dakota project engages 14 SMUMN students and 3 full-time GSS staff members.
GSS SPOTLIGHT!
Ted Sweet
What is your education and/or professional background?
I’m a senior at Saint Mary’s majoring in Math and Physics with an engineering emphasis. I started working for GSS in May 2019.
What led you to GIS? More specifically, how did you get to Saint Mary's University of Minnesota (SMUMN) in Winona?
I came to campus on a tour with my sister and decided this is where I wanted to go to school.
Explain briefly a project at GSS you've done that contributed to your overall knowledge and educational experience.
Currently I am working on a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wetland mapping project in all of southern Wyoming, where I am learning all about connectivity.
How do you see GIS fitting into your future?
I am not sure how I see GIS fitting into my future but it is a distinct possibility.
Where can we find you outside of GSS?
Outside of GSS, you can find me on the track or in the weight room.
GSS Sends 3 to Northern California for Field Verifications
In mid-October, GeoSpatial Services’ (GSS) Andy Robertson, Kevin Stark, and Eric Lindquist spent a week in Northeastern California and Western Nevada for the purpose of verifying GSS’s wetland mapping work. GSS has been a major contributor to the National Wetland Inventory and a long-time partner with the BLM to complete much of their wetland mapping in the western United States and Alaska.
Much of the data taken to the field for evaluation and on-the-ground corrections was created by the team of students working with the GSS/Bureau of Land Management (BLM) mapping team at Watters Hall on SMUMN’s Winona campus. GSS student technicians are guided through a training and learning protocol of wetland mapping skills and exposure to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software in order to be employed by GSS/SMUMN. Staff members Peter McColl, James Loken, Matt Hogan, Shauna (Frahm) Larson, and Eric Lindquist work with students who are in “real-world”, paid positions within GSS. The students gain skills in the software used, data creation, natural resource mapping, and much more.
Currently, GSS employs approximately 40 students at both the Winona and Twin Cities campuses on various projects throughout the U.S.
GSS SPOTLIGHT!
JASON HALL
What is your education and/or professional background?
After graduating from Rushford-Peterson H.S., I attended Rochester Community and Technical College where I played football and earned my Associates of Sciences degree. After deciding on a business major, I transferred to Winona State University where I earned my B.S. in business administration. Soon after graduating, I relocated to the Twin Cities to work in the pharmacy at the Veterans Affairs Hospital located in Minneapolis. While working there I began looking at master’s programs and eventually settled on Saint Mary’s GIS program. Originally seeking the certificate, my interest grew into pursuit of the master’s degree.
What led you to GIS? More specifically, how did you get to Saint Mary's University of Minnesota (SMUMN)?
My journey to Saint Mary’s DIGA program was a combination of many variables. Growing up in Rushford, the local universities gained many of my peers as students (my sister is a recent graduate of SMUMN’s Ed.D. program). While attending both high school and college I would spend most of my free time outdoors. After researching programs and consulting friends and family, I touched down at Saint Mary’s University.
Explain briefly a project at GSS you've done that contributed to your overall knowledge and educational experience.
Most recently, I’ve been working on a project located in Western Alaska’s coastal region, digitizing wetland features that will be used by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. One of the more challenging aspects of mapping wetlands in Alaska is its inundation of water. I believe all of my time spent studying aerial imagery, planning trips on or near the water, from hiking miles of trout streams, navigating hundreds of miles of local rivers and lakes as well as coastal brackish and offshore waters, has aided my image interpretation of wetlands.
How do you see GIS fitting into your future?
GIS is wide-reaching and ever-evolving. It plays a part in the lives of countless people every day, probably without many of them knowing. In addition, it will be used to guide future decisions, sectors including but not limited to natural resource management, business modeling and medical breakthroughs, which will affect our quality of life for generations to come.
Where can we find you outside of GSS?
Outside of GSS, you can find me in multiple locations depending on the season. From Florida to Wisconsin, North Dakota to Colorado, and of course Minnesota; I enjoy spending time with my wife, family, and friends, which usually entails outdoor adventures exploring the myriad of sights, sounds, and tastes nature provides.
GSS SPOTLIGHT!
KAYLA BOETTCHER
What is your education and/or professional background?
I am a senior environmental biology major at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. I graduated from Menomonie High School in Wisconsin in 2017. I not only work at GSS but I am also a Resident Assistant through the university.
What led you to GIS? More specifically, how did you get to Saint Mary's University of Minnesota (SMUMN) in Winona?
I found GIS through a course that was held on campus. During one of our classes, GSS Director Andy Robertson came and spoke on what GIS is and why it is important, and I thought working with GIS would give me good insight into what I may want to do in the future. When it comes to how I ended up at SMUMN, it is actually a funny story. During my senior year of high school, I was being recruited for diving and SMUMN found me on my profile. The coach began to contact me a lot and at the time I was not super excited about going to SMUMN. I agreed to come for a visit, and after being on campus and meeting the environmental staff, I knew this was the place for me. Not only is Winona beautiful, but I also felt really connected to the community as a whole.
Explain briefly a project at GSS you've done that contributed to your overall knowledge and educational experience.
I had the opportunity to start working with NWI 2.0 in MRG. MRG stands for Middle Rio Grande and it is a project area in New Mexico. I was given the completed data set and was asked to go through and make connections so the flow paths would be complete. Through this opportunity, I was able to learn more about the National Wetland Inventory and develop an understanding for what all the codes mean and how all of these pathways come together. It has been very interesting to be able to work in an area that is very different from what we see around us in Minnesota. Working with GSS has allowed me to gain a lot of respect for the effort and time it takes to create databases that move on from us to the customer, where everyday people and organizations can use and explore the data.
How do you see GIS fitting into your future?
I am hoping to use my experience with GIS to map and develop databases for farm land that can be used to map where the runoff water travels and use that information to attempt to limit the amount of pollutants that leave the fields. By understanding where the water goes, we can then begin to better plan and manage the land to ensure high production with the smallest environmental effect.
Where can we find you outside of GSS?
Outside of GSS you can find me all over in the community doing service work, within Winona and on campus. I am the reigning Miss Winona, which keeps me very involved and busy. You can also find me rocking out to music in my car and in the residence life office on campus. As an RA, I have the opportunity to connect with lots of students and help develop community. I can also be found wandering through the bluffs and trying to spot fish in Gilmore Creek!
18 Days Above the Arctic Circle
GeoSpatial Services (GSS) Director Andy Robertson and GSS Analyst Eric Lindquist completed a ‘marathon’ fieldwork trip this past July to Northern Alaska. The trip was a culmination of months of effort and planning related to current work, as well as a kicking off of new projects.
Fieldwork for US Fish and Wildlife Service National Wetlands Inventory mapping projects is a normal part of GSS summers; however, due to a large number of projects in Alaska and the travel restrictions surrounding the COVID-19 situation, the decision was made to combine 3 major projects and spend a lengthy time in the field this summer. Current GSS clients in Alaska include the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) as well as partnerships with Arctic Slope Regional Corp (ASRC) as well as others.
GSS Fieldwork consists of correlating computer landscape imagery or ‘signature’ to actual landscape features, soils, and plant communities. Nearly 1,000 field check sites were visited to develop mapping conventions that will allow 7-10 staff and numerous students to tackle these very large mapping projects for months, and in some cases years, to come.
Typically, all Alaska fieldwork is completed by helicopter with professional pilots, necessary permits, and planning. This year the team was able to work from the areas along the ‘haul road’, also known as the Dalton Highway. The team based out of Coldfoot Camp, Galbraith Lake, and Happy Valley, as well as flying to Kavik River Camp for the last 4 days of work (see map below). The team worked 18 straight days to complete the necessary work and compile data for use upon return to SMUMN. Sites were selected on mostly Federal and state-owned lands including the Kanuti Wildlife Refuge, Gates of the Arctic Refuge, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and others to enhance and inform wetland mapping.
GSS has worked hard to continue ‘business as usual’ during these trying times and is proud to have been successful in this endeavor, to the point of even expanding in order to continue its mission of providing to the University and giving real-world work experiences to students.
