Geospatial Modeler

Are you organized and blessed with an acute technical ability? Do you have intense computer know-how, good listening skills, and an analytical mind? Are you fascinated with Google Earth? If so, consider pursuing a career as a Geospatial Modeler. A Geospatial Modeler job combines your understanding of geography with your computer software savvy.

Have you ever seen books with slide-out pages? The top one looks like an entire dinosaur, but once you’ve slid the page off, it reveals veins and organs. One more slide and you’re down to the skeletal system. As a Geospatial Modeler, you also use this process of overlaying. But instead of dinosaurs and their internal parts, you create layers of landscaping, air pollution, or flooding. The diagrams, software and physical models, and terrain maps you create help Builders, governments, militaries, and businesses (such as utility companies) understand the spatial constraints of a project.

You gather information from a variety of sources, such as global positioning systems (GPS) and geographic information systems (GIS), to create models, grids, charts, and diagrams. There are innumerable ways this information is used. Businesses use it to decide where to place underground storage tanks. Governments build utility infrastructure based on it. Utility companies map out pole and pipe locations.

You could even estimate crisis outcomes. Say there’s a terrorist threat to San Francisco. Your handiwork would create a visual demonstration of how many people and how large an area would be affected.