Accomplishments
- (1997-2008) President of Refractions Research. Founded the consulting company, and led it to over $2.5M in revenue and 25 staff. Set the strategic technology direction and led multiple client projects.
- (2001-Present) Co-founder of PostGIS open source spatial database. Started the project and led the promotion and development of the software throughout. PostGIS is now used around the world in business, government and academia.
- (2004-2008) Founder of uDig open source desktop framework. Wrote initial grant proposal, managed early development of the project, promoted and marketed the project, and provided design guidance and product vision.
- (2006) Founding Member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation.
- (2006) Open Geospatial Consortium. Member of the OGC “Simple Features for SQL” revision working group.
- (2007-2009) Member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation Board of Directors.
- (2007) Chair of the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial Conference (FOSS4G2007) in Victoria.
- (2008) Recipient of Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software for leadership in the open source geospatial community.
- (2009, 2010) Organized the 2009 Toronto Code Sprint and the 2010 New York Code Sprint, gathering sponsors, booking venues, and bringing together the developers of PostGIS, Mapserver, GDAL, GEOS, and other open source projects.
Education
- M.Sc., Statistics, University of Victoria, 1996
- B.Sc., Mathematics, University of British Columbia, 1993
Publications
- “Open Source GIS Fights the Three-Horned Monster”, GeoWorld, August 2002
- “5 Questions for Paul Ramsey”, EOM Online, November 2004
- “Mashing Up the Enterprise”, Geospatial Solutions, April 2006
- “Why SDIs Fail”, blog.cleverelephant.ca, September 2006
- “A Survey of Open Source GIS”, Updated Annually
- “Paul Ramsey on Open Source”, GEOInformatics, September, 2008
- “Open Source Success”, GIM International, October, 2008
- “Open – For Business”, Geoconnexion International, January, 2009
- “Geospatial: An Open Source Microcosm”, Open Source Business Resource, March 2009
Employment History
(2009-Present) Senior Consultant, OpenGeo
- Provide PostGIS expertise and support for OpenGeo clients.
- Wrote a new "geography" type for PostGIS supporting geodetic coordinates natively.
- Provide marketing advice and direction to OpenGeo leadership.
- Re-worked the OpenGeo web presence to highlight a new, product-oriented sales strategy.
- Documented the technology architecture and philosophy in well-received white papers.
- Maintain open source community relationships with the PostGIS, Mapserver and OSGeo communities.
- Organized events such as code sprints, represented OSGeo at community events like FOSS4G, spoke and taught.
(2008-Present) Principal, Clever Elephant Solutions
- Provide geospatial enterprise consulting to government enterprises and software development firms
- Provide training to users of geospatial open source software
- Provide implementation of features in geospatial open source software
(1997-2008) President, Refractions Research
Internal Responsibilities
- Provided sales and product development direction
- Grew the company from $100K in revenue to over $2M, and to 25 staff
- Prepared proposal responses and partnering agreements
- Managed systems infrastructure throughout the growth of the company, from 1 server to dozens
- Provided technical leadership and mentoring to staff
- Carried out business development in local and international markets
Selected Projects
- Served as technical lead and systems architect on numerous contracts
- Led teams of developers, interacted with stake holders, and brought client conception to deliverable reality
- (2007) Hectares BC, Nature Trust of Canada
- An online geospatial analysis system, providing on-the-fly summary and description for the 90 million hectares in British Columbia, at a one hectare level of granularity.
- Conceived the technical vision and prepared architecture documents
- Participated in funding meetings, communicating vision to stakeholders
- Directed technology selection and prototyping process
- Provided user interface design guidance
- (2007) 3D Globe Software Review, Integrated Land Management Bureau
- A review of the options available to ILMB for 3D globe browsers usable by the public for viewing ILMB data.
- Reviewed Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth, NASA Worldwind, and ESRI ArcGIS Explorer.
- Compared all products on ease of use, extensibility, accessibility, maturity, speed and system compatibility.
- Prepared summary documents for executive decision, and complete report with background materials and justification for recommendations.
- (2006) Consolidated Parcel Fabric, with Sierra Systems for the Integrated Land Management Bureau
- Assisted in defining the technical requirements for managing parcel-level cadastre for the Province.
- Met with stake holders several times.
- Drafted sections of the final deliverable for ILMB executive.
- Provided vision for future stages of the process and options for executing the project.
- (2005) COIN Pacific, Integrated Land Management Bureau
- An open standards web information portal, binding together web service catalogues with web mapping viewers, dynamic layer addition and dynamic styling capabilities.
- Met with stakeholders and prepared requirements documentation
- Prepared user interface design documentation
- Managed technical team implementing the system
- Researched and provided expert advice on OpenGIS specifications for the system
- (2004) Corporate Watershed Base, Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management
- An integrated stream/watershed database, built from unstructured planimetric linework
- Complete coverage of the province at 1:20K scale, over 10M features in the database
- Developed data model and processing scheme to convert unstructured data to structured network
- Led working group meetings to discuss and review recommendations
- Led technical team developing algorithms for network data processing
- Developed database structures and systems for loading and unloading data from the database
- Provided expert advice on data provenance and downstream implications of processing decisions
Presentations & Speaking
-
2012, October, Texas GIS Forum
- Keynote: “The Unknowns: A Manager's Guide to Open Source” (Video)
- 2012, April, FOSS4G North America 2012
-
2011, October, Illinois GIS Association Fall Conference
- Keynote: “The Unknowns: A Manager's Guide to Open Source” (PDF)
- 2011, September, FOSS4G 2011
-
2011, May, PgCon 2011
- Keynote: “PostGIS Knows Where You Are: Should you be worried?” (PDF)
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2011, May, ASPRS
- Keynote: “A Manager's Guide to Open Source” (PDF)
- 2010, November, FOSS4G.JP Tokyo & FOSS4G.JP Osaka
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2010, October, Minnesota GIS/LIS Conference 2010
- “Be Not Afraid: A Manager's Guide to Open Source” (PDF),
- “Introduction to PostGIS” (Workshop),
- “Introduction to the Open Geostack” (Workshop)
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2010, September, FOSS4G 2010 (FOSS4G)
- “State of PostGIS” (PDF)
- “Tips for the PostGIS Power User” (PDF)
- “Introduction to PostGIS” (Workshop)
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2010, June, Rendez-vous OSGeo Québec
- “Beyond Nerds Bearing Gifts” (Video)
-
2010, March, Where 2.0
- “Open Geostack” (Workshop)
- “Why Your Data Sucks” (Ignite)
- 2009, October, FOSS4G 2009 (FOSS4G)
- 2009, July, GeoWeb 2009, “Introduction to an Open Source Geostack”
- 2009, May, Where 2.0 2009, “Spatial Database Tips and Tricks”
- 2008, November, University of Kansas GIS Day, “Open Source as a Disruptive Technology” (Video)
- 2008, July, GeoWeb, Vancouver, “A Completely Unbiased Overview of Mapserver”
- 2008, June, OSGeo Netherlands, “Introduction to Open Source GIS”, “Introduction to PostGIS (Workshop)”, “Open Source in British Columbia”
- 2008, May, Bay Area Automated Mapping Association (BAAMA), “Robocop: Public Service in the Internet Age”
- 2008, March, URISA Oregon, “Zen and the Art of Web Mapping”
- 2007, September, FOSS4G 2007 (FOSS4G), Victoria, “PostGIS Case Studies”, “Survey of Open Source”, “Introduction to PostGIS (Workshop)”, “Welcome from the Chair (Plenary)”
- 2007, September, Vancouver GIS Users Group, “A Survey of Open Source GIS”
- 2007, Open Source in Government, Washington DC, Panelist: “Open Source GIS in Government”
- 2007, NAIT GIS Day, Edmonton, “Keynote: Survey of Open Source GIS”
- 2006, GeoTec, Vancouver, “Introduction to Open Source GIS (Workshop)”, “Survey of Open Source GIS”
- 2006, GeoAlberta, Edmonton, “Introduction to Open Source GIS (Workshop)”, “Survey of Open Source GIS”
- 2006, Free and Open Source Software for Geoinformatics (FOSS4G), Lausanne, “PostGIS Case Studies”, “Introduction to PostGIS (Workshop)”
- 2005, OpenGIS Consortium Technical Committee Meeting, New York, “Survey of Web Map Services”
- 2005, North Carolina GIS Conference, “Introduction to Spatial Databases”, “Introduction to uDig”
- 2005, Mapserver Users Meeting 3, Minneapolis, “Introduction to PostGIS (Workshop)”, “uDig Technology Session”
- 2005, GeoTec, Vancouver, “A Survey of Open Source GIS”, “Introduction to Open Source GIS (Workshop)”
- 2004, OSCon, Portland, “Build your own MapQuest!”
- 2004, Mapserver Users Meeting 2, Ottawa, “A Survey of Open Source GIS”, “ArcIMS Emulation with IMSEMU”, “Introduction to PostGIS (Workshop)”
- 2004, GeoTec, Toronto, “A Survey of Open Source GIS”
- 2003, Open Source in Government (eGovOS), Washington DC, “Open Source Tools for Mapping and Spatial Data”
- 2002, GeoTec, Toronto, “Open Source Databases and GIS”
