GSS Awards Student Fellowships

GeoSpatial Services is proud to announce the first-ever winners of our new GSS Fellowship: Connor Corey, Michelle Doering, Theresa DeGross, and Paulrisa Suah. These incoming students will receive a first-year $5,000 scholarship and a part-time paid internship with GSS throughout their college career, if they so choose, as well as ongoing professional and career development opportunities. The new students will begin their time at GSS by working on National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) projects.

The goals of the fellowship program are to attract high-potential undergraduate students and provide them with experiential learning opportunities that will prepare them for the workplace within their chosen disciplines. Additionally, this program will foster on-going collaboration between GSS and the University’s academic disciplines. GIS underpins many industries and current technologies, such as health care services, sales and marketing, emergency response, crime analysis, climate change, real estate, and environmental management. The U.S. Department of Labor predicts that GIS skills will be in high demand over the next decade, with average annual salaries of $70,000.

GSS Fellows (l-r) Michelle Doering, Theresa DeGross, and Connor Corey (not pictured: Paulrisa Suah)

Another BIG Summer in Alaska for GSS Staff

GeoSpatial Services (GSS) has once again completed a very significant season of fieldwork in Alaska. Four teams from GSS travelled to the “Land of the Midnight Sun” this year to complete field verification of wetlands. These trips are required for current and future mapping projects in support of the National Wetland Inventory (NWI), managed by the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS). Due to the remoteness of the study areas, most field work is done by helicopter.

The field season was started off by Director Andy Robertson and GSS Technician Ian Robertson. The team utilized Galbraith Lake airstrip along the Dalton highway and was also based out of the Arctic Village airstrip near a native community, as well as Kavik Camp located in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

The Robertsons passed off the use of the helicopter and pilot to the team of GSS Technician James Loken and Analyst Eric Lindquist for the second leg of GSS work. Their week consisted of field verification for projects located on the North Slope of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve (NPRA), as well as project areas south of the Brooks Range Mountains.

Trip #3 was handled by GSS Assistant Director Kevin Stark, who was accompanied by Eric Lindquist. The pair were responsible for areas on the south side of the Western Brooks Range as well as areas moving west towards Kobuk Valley, Noatak National Park, and further west towards the community of Kotzebue.

The final leg of the trip was the team of GSS Analyst Katie Engelmann and Eric Lindquist, who moved the helicopter and worked south near the town of McGrath. Their project study areas were west of Denali National Park, near McGrath, Galena and other small villages.

GeoSpatial Services is the largest contributor to the National Wetland Inventory and is a major partner with many agencies in Alaska as well as the lower 48. GSS currently employs 24 full-time staff and nearly 40 students at any given time. Acquiring new projects and completing fieldwork are only a few steps in the process of completing the updated digital mapping products for their clients.

GSS Staff Continue Travels

In late August, Analyst Eric Lindquist and Technician Matt Hogan completed their fieldwork for the Colorado portion of the Bureau of Land Management’s NWI wetland mapping update project. The trip lasted 9 days, evaluating mainly draft map data and answering questions about the landscape that are difficult to interpret from analyzing imagery on the computer. The study area encompasses many different ecoregions in the south and west part of the state, near towns such as Grand Junction, Telluride, Durango, Alamosa, and Cañon City. Using the technology of Esri Field Maps application, and ArcPro mapping software, Eric and Matt were able to bring back valuable pieces of intelligence for everyone involved in completing the project to reference.

Busy Field Work Season Begins

From May 16-22, six GSS staff members traveled across central and northwestern North Dakota to conduct field verification of aerial imagery and photointerpretation conventions for the National Wetland Inventory (NWI) update. Staff split into two teams to cover more ground, with Kevin Stark, Darren Omoth, and Mike Knudson in one vehicle, and Nick Lemcke, Jeff Knopf, and Kathy Allen in another. During the week, the GSS teams were joined by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) staff from the Regional NWI program for three days, and also met up with local USFWS managers in the Crosby area and at Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge. Highlights of the trip included visiting the many National Wildlife Refuges scattered across the state, including some alkaline lakes and flats that serve as habitat for the threatened piping plover (Great Plains population), and spotting a wide variety of waterfowl and wading birds.

Locations of check-sites that were visited during May field verification.

Congratulations to our graduating students!

SIXTEEN of our student technicians here at GSS are members of the SMUMN graduating Class of 2021! We congratulate them on all their accomplishments and wish them the best in their next adventures!

Cece Abel Nasteho Ahmed

Kayla Boettcher Shane Breslin

Crystal Chavez Beth Davis

Aly Deegan Klaus Friedli

Hannah Hagberg AnnMarie Jacobsen

Nick Nast Ted Sweet

Breanna Tews Kieran Walsh

Sion Williams Fletcher Zuerlein

GSS partners with WSU and Winona Historical Society

In 2017, the Winona County Historical Society (WCHS) discovered a nearly 120 year-old transcribed copy of the original Public Land Survey (PLS) notes for Winona Township in its archives. The survey field notes provide a record of vegetation, landmarks, and other natural resources of the Winona area as they appeared in the middle of the 19th century. WCHS and Winona State University (WSU) received a grant from the State of Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund to digitize this and other historic ecological data with the goal of producing an accessible and shared resource to educate the community about the local ecologic history of the Driftless Area. GSS joined the project to develop the needed spatial data, a digital vegetation map, and an interactive online Esri story map to present the findings.

Our digital vegetation mapping found that, historically, the most prevalent communities in Winona Township were prairie and oak woodland, followed by floodplain forest and savanna. Since the time of the original PLS, the expansion of the City of Winona has eliminated nearly all of the prairie and savanna, and human influence has modified waterways and the river floodplain. For more information on the process and our findings, visit the full story map. GSS staff will also be giving an online presentation about the project on April 6 at 6:30; you can find a description and a link to watch the presentation here.

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.