Ellen West Nodwell, GISP - A Career of Many Interests

Retrospectively, how have I realized this? Through much introspection and self-analysis over many years. From the "why are we here and what is my purpose" quests beginning in my teens to finding my way in university, as I started and carried on with working to support a family, I stepped from stone to stone attracted to jobs that were at first, just jobs, then those that presented more compelling opportunities to make a difference and solve more complex problems. Two characteristics of my personality kept floating up - I am an analyst, I tend to lead people - so leadership came up over and over.

I love unrestrained deep digs into information and information about information! Put me on a beach, put me on a river, put me in the woods, put me on land anywhere -- my head is down, and I am searching for anything that fits into my categories of interest which are various:

Geology, archeology, paleontology, oceanography, biology, birds, animals, insects - rocks, fossils, native tribe relics, seashells - identifying and sometimes saving (!) bees, butterflies, dragonflies, and observing their ecosystems... Appreciating and photographing earthly and astronomical scenery - the skies, the mountains, the rivers, the lakes, seashores, all of what is around us on this precious planet...

I am an analyst. I am a problem-solver. I am a spatial thinker. I am an outdoor enthusiast and late in life athlete. I am curious, I like to dig deeper and look for associations between different things that exist, and investigate the underlying stories -- and I do not (will not) want to stop learning. Ever.

And... I love maps and find that this visualization of information and relationships to be one of the most compelling ways to understand places, spaces, and what is underneath and above them.

Using maps and map making are both common threads in my family - the drive to extend across areas, the need to navigate using maps, and the use of maps as tools to do their work...

The picture below is from one of my books - my first atlas, where interestingly enough, there were explanations of what a map is, what models are, and definitions of natural and man-made features, and routes! Finding this book gave me some insight into my early development of spatial thinking.

Experiences seeing my Dad bring maps home when he was working, preparing for meetings or understanding more about an assignment he had... all served to reinforce the understanding and different contexts where maps are used. When traveling with my Dad driving the car, he sometimes would give me the Rand McNally map and ask me to help him navigate - a life skill lesson.

One of my Dad's sisters, my wonderful Aunt Dorothy, began to load me up with genealogy information she had compiled about our family close to the time the internet was launched and over time, I used her information to begin to chart our family's origins and migrations over time. This personal integration of data into maps has been an ongoing endeavor where I use my skills to document history for future generations.

In North America, my family extends back to early settlers in Canada and the American original colonies, and further back, to those locations from where they traveled, Scotland, England, Ireland, plus other parts of Northern Europe, to arrive onto North American shores looking for ways to make a better life.

Some migrated from Scotland to Canada and other places on the East Coast. Some entered into the US from Quebec, making their way down from New York into the mid-continent regions of the USA.

Some entered the gateways of North America before the United States of America was established, in Massachusetts in the mid-1600s, and another branch in 1691 arrived into Germantown, Pennsylvania. This took place before Ellis Island was established.

Other family groups came from England as well as Ireland, later, mostly seeking improved economic opportunities.

Some of my family members continued to migrate westward once they established themselves after the United States of America was founded. Some were looking to escape the ravages of the Civil War, after not wanting to participate in it, then forced to do so.

The Castleberry family was impacted by tragedy related to their experiences trying to be conscientious objectors to the civil war and the Confederacy - yet they were rounded up and made to go to war or face prison. One did not make it home. The one that did made a decision to move west with his family and with some others they moved into Indian Territory with the goal of founding a place for a better life.

I often wonder how they found their way through the broad expanses of the places named "Indian Territory" that at the time was fairly wide-open. What maps did they use? Settling this question is part of my research into my family history. My hypothesis includes that there must have been maps.

Understanding why I am oriented to my work the way that I am comes from understanding who my role model for doing business is - my Dad - and how he became who he was.

Coming from strong, hard-working people who took calculated risks to better their economic well-being, the values of ethics and hard work stood out in my Dad's character. His family members ahead of him endured many significant and difficult events in their lives. Moving West was the means to improving their lives.

My maternal Grandfather, J.K. Wallingford known to family and friends as "Rufus", was born in 1898. His father, "O.P." Oliver Wallingford, was a farmer, a pastor, and for a time served as postmaster where they lived in northern Kentucky in Cynthiana. O.P. also fought in the Civil War, for the Union.

My Grandfather went off to the University of Kentucky just before WWI broke out. About his second year, he joined the Navy and went off to fight in the war, overseas. He became a navigator, eventually, and there is some mystery about what he did during this part of his service as there are missing logs that he never turned in, even being admonished by his command for not doing so. Upon further investigation recently, the logs were never turned in and are not a part of his record of service. He would never speak of his experiences. What we do know is that he had the working knowledge of geodesy and employed it later on in his career, becoming a geological explorer and surveyor.

He returned to university after his service ended. He studied mining geology and engineering. He graduated and was eventually hired by a petroleum company as an exploration geological surveyor. He traveled west and then across the southern border in his employment as a geological surveyor, taking one assignment in Mexico in the Poza Rica in Veracruz, and later after returning to the US, transitioned in the business working the land leasing side.

He left his petroleum business full-time efforts during the onset of the Great Depression and entered the hospitality business where he worked the rest of his career, but remained doing business in petroleum royalty management as a side concern.

What I learned from discovering the original copy of my Grandfather's map, is that he had developed his mapping skills locally on assignment for school, and the place involved ended up being where he met my Grandmother and embarked later after they married, on his career path.

I continue to investigate my family stories. Leveraging data science, geospatial and technologies, plus the use of AI together help me in this investigation. Collaboration with others has been essential in the journey of discovery.

My career kicked off by necessity while I was still attending university classes. I pretty much worked my way through post-secondary school attending several different universities wherever I was living at the time. I worked during the day, and attended university at night. It was not the typical go at education, driven by a specific career goal, but one where I changed direction over time, as I matured and as my career interests became more focused. I initially started as a fine arts major, then quickly realized that I could not make a living at it. I am not bad at art work, and I am very creative, but hold that thought. Those two talents lend themselves to my career development.

Initially, working in a hospital setting, I wanted to pursue nursing, then learned I would have to stop working, so I switched to a business major for a short time. The school loans that became so popular later on were not a thing at that time. Every dollar mattered, as we lived paycheck to paycheck.

I recognized that I needed to continue to pursue a degree, but the courses to fulfill my major needed to be available in "night school". That narrowed my options.

After realizing that my favorite course was business law, I decided to pursue coursework that could help me with a background for law school - philosophy, with a psychology major. My idea was to pursue public health administration law, potentially focusing on employment. While in school I took many history, economics, philosophy, and psychology classes, plus the normal required language, mathematics, and such.

Technology as it is today did not exist. We were still using adding machines that later evolved into calculators - and computing was still mainframe with key punch cards and long printed reports formatted with rows and columns of data.

I began working in the mental health system in the state of Georgia, in the early 1970's. I progressed through many roles, and quickly learned that I enjoyed solving problems (analytical), displaying information (data visualization), and organizing (data management and taxonomies). As an analyst for the State of Georgia, Division of Mental Health in the Department of Human Resources - Part of my role was continual monitoring of the demographics of our workforce and reporting to management each quarter. I analyzed demographics and mapped the results using a mainframe print-out, 10-key adding machine, paper and pencils! My role also included program coordination, which meant working with many different people with diverse interests, who I later enjoyed introducing to one another, and connecting together when I felt that they had common interests, or would otherwise work well together. Looking backwards, we now call this "networking".

I continued in my analyst role with the State of Georgia until family circumstances drove the need to return to my home state. With a sizeable amount of trepidation, I resigned my job and we headed back to Texas ahead of the holidays in 1981.

I needed to work, and did not find a role similar to the job I left in Georgia. Texas did not have its state government center nearby. It was petroleum industry, medical industry, or small business for job offerings. I looked at compensation, and the petroleum industry in a growth phase had the most opportunities immediately available.

In mid-November of 1981, I took on a temporary "contractor" role in the oil and gas industry. That kicked off my entree into the journey of evolving as a technologist. I started off in supply chain (interesting!), then moved into an engineering group that built the facilities for offshore oil drilling (platforms and such).

I embarked in my quest for increasing my understanding about the whole ecosystem of the industry - leveraging my knowledge from growing up as an "oil patch kid" surrounded by my grandfather, my dad, and uncles, plus friends of family having different roles in the industry - I had absorbed a lot of understanding that provided the foundation for working inside.

For my first salaried offer, it was in a Reservoir Engineering group, as the assistant to one of the group's supervisors - later moving up to be assistant to the group's manager, then moving into a technical role, because I had an aptitude for computing.

Not as it seemed, that group actually functioned as the team that evaluated the worth of prospects and projects ahead of proposing to upper management for budgeting and scheduling. I learned an enormous amount in that group and progressed into different roles within it, mainly those related to working with data and organizing information for others to view (visualizations as we know them today).

I later learned that I would evolve into leadership by taking responsibilities above my pay-grade and performing them over extended periods of time. I took on difficult or daunting projects. I volunteered to do work that posed challenges. I was not overcome by a fear of failure.

Over time, I saw this as the single factor that helped me take charge and be creative in uncharted territories - create new functions in organizations, create cohesive teams that could be effective in global organizations, understand how people work and help them leverage technology and data better to improve outcomes...

Take on the hard work that others are unwilling to tackle. Empower others. Use the power of WE. Share success and blame. Learn from failing and be intelligent in the next hypotheses for solving problems that are related to those where we have failed.

As an aside... but an important one. I was touring the Tate-Modern Museum in London, highly jet-lagged on one trip in 2006, when I saw the following on the wall as an art display. This was ahead of meeting my new team as their manager in our London Office. Fortuitous it was for me to see this that day...

By Artists: Peter Fischli (b. 1952, Zurich, Switzerland, lives and works in Zurich) and David Weiss (1946-2012, Zurich, Switzerland) have exhibited at major museums and biennials across the globe, including the Serpentine Gallery, London (2013); Kunsthalle Budapest (2012); Art Institute of Chicago (2011); 21st Century of Contemporary Art, Japan (2010); and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2009). Retrospectives of their work have been presented at Tate Modern, London (2006 – traveling to Zurich, Paris and Hamburg) and The Walker Art Center (1996 – traveling to San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Boston). The artists represented Switzerland in the 1995 Venice Biennale, and in 2003, they were awarded the Golden Lion for Questions (1981-2003), an installation of more than a thousand existential queries collected over several  years.

I had good bosses, excellent bosses, and horrible bosses - and I learned from every one of them through every experience, good and bad. I learned how to manage effectively from some, and how not to manage from others. I learned how to treat people in my teams with respect and understand that each person had gifts that they could share with all of us to make a whole group more effective.

From my first roles, I moved into more technical roles through three different companies, eventually moving into IT as a systems analyst in 1995. As I was told by the IT Director, when I made the switch, "you can never go back". This was true to a certain extent, but then in exiting corporate life as an employee, I have learned that entrepreneurship is a whole new ballgame!

In my life, I have learned that I have certain traits that lend to my choices in career development. First, I am a very analytical person. I am also a systems thinker. I love solving problems in unconventional ways. I was never a great "do as I say" order-taker. My philosophy is to teach people to fish, not give them fish sandwiches!

There was a Far Side cartoon of a bunch of lemmings, where one of them was going a different way - that's me and my approach to solving problems and solution building. I look at the cracks and crevices and those tell a lot about what might be wrong with something.

Business analysis is the first most important part of any piece of work. I read the people and understand how much work there is really going to be to build a solution. I find my first career chapter and my education in psychology and philosophy gives me tremendous insight into how people behave with data. This is an early-prediction as to how successful a solution will be -- and how sustainable it needs to be.

Getting to know individuals and collaborating with them, constituted the beginning of my building a wonderful network of people from whom I have learned so very much, and who continue to provide many ideas that contribute to and influence my thinking about the world, and how important it is to keep going - keep working, keep innovating, and most of all, keep learning. I learned social networking from some of the best social net-workers I have ever met - before it was a technology thing.

I have watched my extended group of peers with whom I have maintained friendships, evolve over time. By and large, they possess one thing in common: they are very generous in sharing and contributing amongst their peers, plus others - even to those new in careers. They possess a rich pool of knowledge that will be passed along to future generations through their contributions along the way. My hope is that future generations will value what we, as a loosely affiliated group, offer as "knowledge collateral", as the wisdom gained by our experience has been hard earned. What each generation can gift to the next is wisdom and lessons learned. As we bring people into careers and give them opportunities to learn from people getting ready to depart, before they move on, the baton is passed.

I also have very much enjoyed learning from my family members who have gone before me. In various cultures through history, this has been the tradition for the basis of learning. Many passed along their lessons to younger people by demonstration and story-telling. As my family endured extreme hardships, the next generations learned from those.

Likewise, at work, as we bring people into careers and give them opportunities to learn from people getting ready to depart, before they move on, the baton is passed. As we have discovered our family of man has pursued learning this way for thousands of years. As I look back into the generations of my ancestors, I continue to learn from their stories and recorded life experiences that I have found in family documents. Geography is to me, one of the most effective ways for visualizing and understanding the framework of our history.

My Dad was a win-win negotiator and loathed cheating and cheaters alike.

Our walks have been similar in our careers as you go up a few levels and look at our lives - both of us had interruptions throughout our schooling and our work - both of us returned to work and progressively moved up where we were working - each of us ended up in middle-management - and both of us gained insight and business acumen along each step of the way.

What we have learned, and the wisdom that we have gained is not something you learn in university courses - it is learned by dealing with life events, business transactions and the people, in particular.

My Dad was tough but fair. As he moved on in his career, he actually terrified some of his younger staff - why? Because he had X-ray vision - if they told untruths, or tried to weasel themselves out of work, or skipped process steps - he could see right through to the core and the truth of the matter - every time. Once that happened, that person was on "his list" and he did not trust them - and he made them work hard to win back trust, or else he let them go. He knew the business. Some of them thought that they were "younger and smarter than the old man" - this was an attitude problem according to my Dad. He executed countless contracts and helped his employer succeed time after time. Yet he was not the type of person who would toot his own horn and brag. That went against his grain.

Working in GIS like any other technology is not all about the technology. My Dad was a negotiator and people relationships were extremely important to him. He taught me that people are number one. The deal is second. All deals need to be fair and equitable for both sides.

"He points out that oil scouting has changed a great deal from what it was in early days. 'We have to be kind of politicians. We have to know the drillers’ lingo, have to talk with farmers and with brokers,' said West.

West said oil scouts today have organized and cooperate with one another. They meet once a week and exchange information and assign each other territories to investigate."

Changed Idea "That’s a development that would have turned the old-time oil scout blind, and they were pretty sharp sighted. What the pioneer oil scout found out about formations, field and wells was his secret, to be told only to members of his company.

He, the early-day scout, was part geologist and part landman in many instances. He had to operate with only the information gathered by his company. West is an example of how the tight-lipped scout has changed. 'We just couldn’t do the job alone,' said West.

West said there are more than 900 wells in the district served by approximately 30 scouts who meet weekly in Abilene.

'Bull' Organizes It

'Our “bull scout” tells us to go to a certain district,' said West. “We have to investigate every well listed with the Railroad Commission. Companies are very cooperative. We gather information – everything about seismographing, core-hole information, and geophysicist data.'

'Along with well and formation information, the scout checks to get an accurate report on where each well is spotted. The scout also visits county-courthouses as well as interesting wells. Landmen and geologists are then given the scouts’ data.'

A graduate of Oklahoma University West majored in business administration. However, he prepared to enter the oil business by taking 15 hours in geology. He also worked with a seismograph crew and as a roughneck before finishing school.

He is a veteran of World War II, married, and has been in Abilene approximately three years. His hobbies are woodwork and sports."

My Dad suffered through the ups and downs of the petroleum industry - he was early-retired when a large corporation bought the company who he worked with for nearly 40 years by that time. I still hear his voice guiding me through many turbulent waters.

My Dad gave me "radar" for detecting dishonest people that has become more refined over time. He was never wasteful, was self-reliant and resourceful. He rarely met a problem he could not solve or any idea he could not design and build. He was a win-win negotiator through and through.

Mentoring is invaluable. Mid-career, I was given the opportunity to mentor university interns. The company I worked for at the time had an internship program, first for family members that were just graduating high school or first year university students, next a full academic internship program. The next company I worked for had a very highly regarded diverse internship program into which I became highly involved and participated for several years. When I moved into my role as a Global GIS Manager, I made sure that we had an internship program initiated and in place in all of our locations. To me, this is the best way for students entering careers to come into an understanding what real-life work is about.

I had informal mentors in my career at every juncture - people who freely shared their acquired wisdom or offered road signs to places where I could get more training or experience in what I was doing at the time. Only once was I ever assigned a mentor at a company where I was working. It was something I had heard other people had, yet I had never been told I could have a mentor assigned. I jumped at the opportunity. It was invaluable to have a senior person, not my boss, help me understand some of the road-blocks within our organization and how to navigate over them, through them or understand those that were indicators to turn around and go a different direction.

One connection who became a GIS mentor to me and also became a dear friend was Dr. Roger Tomlinson. I had the privilege of meeting him in 2008, after attending his classes in planning and managing GIS, at a book signing at the Esri User Conference in San Diego.

My senior manager at that time had over several years, attended the executive sessions at the UC where Dr. Tomlinson had either led or co-led them, and highly recommended that I attend any courses he led. We attended one in the UK in 2007, and one at the Esri UC in 2008.

The course was a game-changer in perspective for a GIS Manager with my responsibilities. At the book signing, I inquired whether Dr. Tomlinson attended GIS Day events or did presentations - he said he had - so, I stepped away and called my senior manager and asked if I should propose to Dr. Tomlinson that he keynote our upcoming GIS Day in 2009. Dr. Tomlinson agreed, and in the next few months plans were made.

This began a mentorship and friendship that lasted from that point until he left the planet in 2014, we regularly spoke and met either in California at Esri conferences, or in Canada near their home. He told us many stories laced with great wisdom about his many experiences implementing GIS and helping people use GIS to solve both large and small world problems. We attended his 80th birthday celebration, but sadly, he left this world less than a year later. We attended his memorial service and heard many amazing stories from people who were a part of his life, afterwards sharing more stories at his wake. His words continue to guide me today.

I did not begin to travel outside of North America until around 1998, well into my 40's. Sometimes I was alone, far away in a new place - where I explored on my own, meeting new people and seeing amazing things. I took hikes, and tours, and often struck out with a paper map in hand, navigating through large cities, seeking places that I decided were "must-sees".

In retrospect, I think, "Gee, I was brave!" At the time, it was just plowing ahead looking for the right paths to take, correcting if I got lost, and pressing on.

London was one city where I knew that certain areas were unsafe, but by and large, I could "crawl London" and find my way around pretty well. I became a "museum addict", and visited most every one of them there.

My then friend, now husband, Gus, took me on a drive around the city on one trip, giving glimpses of places I had not ever been, nor would I have found from the "insider" perspective. What a gift!

In Paris, going to museums was the best way to see famous works of art and learn history, correlating my cumulative knowledge each time. Outside of Paris, all over France, there are amazing "nuggets" everywhere you go - ancient history embedded into modern life. Below is a picture of Annecy - a former Roman settlement, still has ancient walls standing, and buildings with interesting architecture from the 10th century.

• I am a certified GISP (GIS Practitioner) by the GISCI (GIS Certification Institute)
• I know how to wrangle data - I understand databases and how to build data models
• I am a business analyst and have worked on several projects as a consultant using these skills
• I have been a project manager multiple times in my career
• I have an extensive background using Esri ArcGIS technology and have done so since the early 1990's moving forward through its versions, having managed version migrations, upgrades, and such as well as virgin implementations of their Enterprise GIS platform.
• I know how to build geodatabases and mapping data from "scratch" using different sources of information, scanned old maps, or collected data from surveys.
• I have built little applications using Leaflet (java-script)
• I do WordPress administration and build websites (but this is not my favorite)
• I have facilitated and designed training and group discussions at conferences and in virtual online sessions. I have made more presentations than I can count at many different conferences and professional meetings, mainly focusing on data management, spatial data management and data governance.
• I have led organizations as well as participated in them as a board member - several times - with more than one.
• I have done volunteer work using my GIS skills with GIS Corps as well as my organization skills for fundraising - I have run half marathons and 5K's to raise money for our local Susan G. Komen Foundation, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and been co-organizer of two race events for our local CASA organization.

What I learned from watching my Dad as he performed his job roles and talked about them at our house guides me still.

Doing business has continued to require good relationships and "win-win" in order to be successful in the outcomes.

Partners should have equivalent balance in their relationships - when this does not happen, it is not a true partnership.

What is exciting is that human developments in technology enable more discoveries about our precious planet. The question is whether humans will respect the scientific expansion of knowledge in order to preserve life on earth.

Technology has transformed over time - people attitudes have progressed in some, in others not so much. Understanding how this works is a very delicate art, and what we have learned is that technology cannot truly overcome people - it may seem that it will, but wired into our human framework is a detector that eventually will get tripped. People count.

Machines are dumb without people giving them instructions and this, regardless of what is said about "AI" will remain - at least within our lifetimes.

Understand your relationships in business and keep the ones that you have, tend them, resolve conflicts early, and grow them strong.

I know that we can help prepare people coming into our profession by giving them experiences to develop their own "wisdom". I want to walk with people who embrace this same set of principles and ethics my Dad instilled in me - to enable us to survive with creativity and critical thinking. Ellen West Nodwell, GISP