On the Map: 9 questions with Barney Krucoff

April 23, 2012

Ashley

As I have been working in the GIS field for 10 years in Maryland, I have met some interesting, talented, intelligent, and motivating GIS colleagues along the way.  Hopefully this blog series will share with you some exciting tidbits of information from each person who has touched my career in some way.

I first met Barney Krucoff at a Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments GIS committee meeting in 2006. At the time, Barney was the GIS manager for Washington DC and I was very impressed with his knowledge of spatial technology and the cohesiveness of DCs GIS. When I heard the news that Barney was coming to work in Maryland, I knew that Maryland GIS would be in good hands.

  Quick Facts about Barney Krucoff

Tell me something fun about your job.
Governor O’Malley has a special interest in geospatial technology and really uses maps and data to manage and lead the state. I bet that I’m the only state GIO who sits in his governor’s senior staff meetings. The challenge is delivering data and applications fast enough.

What is one of your favorite hobbies?
Ultimate Frisbee

Where are you from?
I was born and raised in Washington, DC, and have lived in Bethesda, Maryland since 1995.

What is your favorite GIS book?
To be honest, I don’t read GIS books cover-to-cover. That said, I’m a sucker for books that use transparent pages, like GIS applications use layers, to tell a story about a place.  For example:

  • Cities Then and Now, by Jim Antoniou
  • Transparent Cities, by Brian McGrath

1. What professional organizations are you active in?
I became active in the National State Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) when I became the District of Columbia GIS manager in 2004.  Over the years NSGIC has been a great source of contacts and information. NSGIC also provides benchmarks to measure how a state-level geospatial program is doing, and a little friendly comparison between states never hurts.

Now I’m also becoming involved with the Maryland State Geographic Information Committee (MSGIC). Maryland is lucky to have so many professionals and students interested and active in the organization.

2. How would you recommend others get involved in GIS?
I’m amazed at the quality and quantity of GIS programs in Maryland universities and colleges.  Whether you want to major in GIS or support another specialty by adding GIS knowledge, here are some links:

3. How has GIS changed since you first started your career?
Here is some of the stuff we didn’t have:

  • Data (except TIGER and some DLG)
  • Graphical user interfaces
  •  GPS (it existed, but few civilians had seen it)
  • Email (it existed, but wasn’t widely used)
  • The World Wide Web
  • Did I mention we didn’t have any data?

4. Where do you see GIS going in the future?
I haven’t been all that good at predicting the future of GIS during the first 21 years of my career, but as they say, “past performance is no indication or guarantee of future results,” so there is hope. The obvious trends seem to be the same ones that are moving the IT industry generally:

  • GIS, more than most information technologies, was focused on the public sector. It is now mass market and consumer oriented. The public sector is still adjusting to this shift.
  • Open source software is coming on strong.
  • Crowdsourcing and volunteer geographic information are coming on strong.
  • The cloud hosting is changing business models.
  • Web offerings continue to evolve rapidly from publishing pages to publishing services.
  • Citizen expectations for presentation and quality of government data are rising.

5. Could you explain how/why GIS is important in today’s world?
We are living in a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene, aka, the Age of Man. Through development, farming, and energy use, humans are now changing the Earth itself and geologic time is accelerating. GIS helps us manage many things today (crime, transportation, health, land use, farms, etc.). What many people don’t yet realize is that now we need to start managing the planet holistically. GIS isn’t a tool in the planetary management tool box, it is the schematic.

6. Where do you see the job market going in terms of opportunities in GIS?
I see the job market remaining strong, but at the same time GIS is becoming less like magic every day.

7. How did you get interested in the field of Geography/GIS?
I was always interested in maps and cities, and I was comfortable with computers. I was already on my way to getting a Master’s in City Planning from Georgia Tech when I took Dr. Bill Drummond’s GIS class in 1990. I knew quickly that I had found my calling.

8. Did/do you have a mentor?  Who?
Many people inspired me, taught me, and helped me establish my career. They include:

My greatest professional inspiration has come from my staff at Michael Baker and the District of Columbia. They are too numerous to mention here.

9. What is one piece of advice you would give to a newbie in the field?
I have never loved the traditional five-part definition of GIS (hardware, software, data, processes, people). It is accurate but too clinical. I prefer a two-part definition: “GIS combines the power of maps with the power of computers.” Now the advice, don’t forget the computer part – particularly relational database management.

In case you missed the second installment of “On the Map,” check out my interview with Kenny Miller.

2 Comments | Mapping, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ashley Buzzeo

Let Us All Rejoice!

September 30, 2010

Raquel

Do you know what you were doing during June of 2009?  Well, if anything you should have been rejoicing about the official end of the recession!  That’s right ladies and gents, the longest and deepest downturn for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression came to an end 18 months after it began.  I think it’s finally time to break out this t-shirt:

Photo Credit: www.Zazzle.com

Or is it?   Before we explore this new development further, let me give you background on the definition of an economic recession.  The National Bureau of Economic Research’s (NBER) Business Cycle Dating Committee is the body responsible for officially dating the beginning and end of recessions.  The most commonly referenced definition of a recession is two or more quarters of negative GDP growth. However, while some past recessions may have followed this definition, it’s not the only way that the committee determines the official beginning and end.  Here is the definition directly from NBER’s website: recession is a period between a peak and a trough, and an expansion is a period between a trough and a peak. During a recession, a significant decline in economic activity spreads across the economy and can last from a few months to more than a year. Similarly, during an expansion, economic activity rises substantially, spreads across the economy, and usually lasts for several years.

Here’s a visual of a typical business cycle:

Photo Credit: www.Allbusiness.com

When making their decision, the committee examines a range of other indicators such as employment, real income, sales and the Federal Reserve’s index of Industrial Production (IP).  What is important to note here is that the committee only officially announces dates when it has full access to all relevant data and all data revisions have been completed. The committee then looks back and determines in what month the economy reached bottom and began to expand again.  According to the announcement by the NBER in September, they decided that a trough had occurred in June 2009 and while the economy was still weak – with lingering high unemployment – it had expanded considerably from its trough 15 months earlier.

So, that’s the technical definition, but what does it mean for the average individual?  The end of a recession or beginning of an economic recovery is not a tide that lifts all boats, so to speak.  Economic recovery could be stronger in certain industries and slower in others.  Recessionary or diminishing economic activity can still be present even as the overall economy begins to recover.  The real question is how is the economic recovery affecting or not affecting you?  How has your life changed since June 2009?  The answer to this question, in my opinion, is the real gauge of economic prosperity.  And, as you can imagine, is all terribly subjective.  Thus, we can’t put too much significance on announcements of   the end or the beginning of recession.  What we can do, however, is use the information as a point of analysis.

2 Comments | Economic Analysis, News | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Raquel Frye

What do you DO all day?

September 15, 2009
Raquel

Raquel

It’s usually one of the go-to questions a person asks at a party or networking event – So, what do you do? When I tell them I’m an Economist they either seem interested or annoyed (these days it seems to be more of the latter). In certain cases, some are even bold enough to ask – Well, what do you DO all day?

So, what exactly does an Economist do all day?  Fortunately being a part of the Applied Economics group here at DECO means that we get to do a variety of things.  Our work is always changing, right along with the economy.  Since its imperative that we stay on top of economic news, my morning usually starts by browsing online sites of newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and the New York Times.  On any given day, I could be downloading and analyzing data from a variety of government websites such as employment and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics or personal income data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  The data collected is used as the foundation for our employment and personal income forecasts.

If I’m working on a particular project for a client, it usually entails topic specific research and data collection.  For instance, I could be examining current film incentive programs in the State of Maryland or using Federal procurement data to outline economic opportunities for Maryland’s small and minority businesses as a result of BRAC movements.

I love that there’s never really a “typical” day at my job since projects and clients are always changing.  So, when someone asks me what I do all day, I usually respond with – A little bit of everything!

Source: www.dilbert.com

Source: www.dilbert.com

4 Comments | Economic Analysis | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Raquel Frye

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