I’m a senior support engineer for product success and I’ve been working with ArcGIS software for about 10 years. I started with some courses in grad school at the University of New Haven and quickly developed an affinity with the products. After a year of working with the software I was asked to become a teacher’s assistant (TA) for the ArcGIS courses. In the months leading up to my graduation I realized that I wanted to pursue a career oriented around using ESRI’s ArcGIS product. I was fortunate enough to find a job right before school ended as a cartographer for company a few towns away that produced maps for telephone books, brochures, magazines, etc…
There I learned how to use and edit scripts to update maps with Python and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which I have somewhat forgotten. I also learned how to use a few products in the Adobe suite (Photoshop and Illustrator mostly) and help construct color palettes for the maps that were being produced. I also had the opportunity to learn documentation processes for my work and learned how to write instructions for others in case I was out of the office. It was a small company and deadlines had to be met, so if I was out for some reason at least one person needed to know the work flow for producing the maps.
Unfortunately, I was not with the company for very long because of the state of the economy in 2008. I was very fortunate, however, to get a job at Bentley Systems in 2009 with the hydraulics and hydrology (Haestad) team shortly after being let go, which allowed me to learn new software while applying my existing knowledge of the ArcGIS software. I’m the expert on team for ArcGIS questions and have helped to write or edit many of the wiki articles on the WaterGEMS and SewerGEMS integration with ArcMap. Some of my daily activities for the team include answering technical questions about the water and storm water product line on the forums, through email, and over the phone. I have since tried to keep up with my use of the ArcGIS software and I would be lying if I said that I haven’t forgotten a lot of things since I no longer use it every day, but I still very much enjoy using it alongside the hydraulics and hydrology products that have brought me towhere I am today.
I’ll be using this blog as a way to introduce new concepts and previously documented tricks and tips to the Bentley hydraulics and hydrology water and storm-sewer users that are interested in the integration of the products with the ArcGIS, specifically with ArcMap. I also plan to discuss ArcCatalog and other tools like ArcGIS online mapping and how they can be used to better facilitate your water and storm sewer modeling. I don’t plan to focus solely on ArcGIS and I don’t plan to focus solely on the hydraulics and hydrology line of products, but strive to find a balance of a median on both subjects in each post. If you are interested in Advanced ArcGIS topic or in ArcGIS integration with Bentley’s water, storm and sewer software, I hope you enjoy my posts. Your feedback in the comments area is much appreciated. If you have questions about ArcGIS integration with Bentley software, myself or one of my colleagues would be happy to assist you on our forum and you can also find answers to many ArcGIS integration questions on our Wiki.
Thanks,
Mark