The position reported directly to the County Assessor, a rural Republican woman from the north end of the County. She had held the seat for about 6 years I think, after being appointed from within the Office by the Governor, following the resignation of the previous Assessor. She was hard-nosed and demanding, while at the same time perfectly clear and reasonable in her expectations. Much like me, she preferred getting down to business with straight and honest answers to questions, and had very little tolerance for folks that beat around the bush. As a result, we got along really well, after testing each other a few times, and I was determined to make good things happen for her, the Office, and the County GIS.
The previous GIS Manager had left the position about 6 months prior to my arrival and only about a year in the position. I later discovered that this was a scenario that had repeated itself numerous times in the past. GIS folks signed on to the position long enough to hold the title, then left for a position in the private sector. There had been no attempt to retain anyone in the position, through commensurate compensation, and there was no interest in doing so. Consequently, the GIS was in a crumbling and dilapidated state, and not really much use to anyone except the persons maintaining and analyzing the records.
A GIS Analyst had only recently signed on, after having been absent from the profession for several years. She was doing her best maintain the data and day-to-day business; that is, in spite of a total lack of guidance, direction, documentation, or procedure, from the previous GIS Manager. I was concerned she would follow the same path as many others that had been in that position, but was fortunate to have her give the situation a chance and stay on through 4 years of the restructuring.
Throughout the County, there were only a couple of others involved with GIS. The GIS Coordinator within the Planning & Zoning Department mostly worked independently on projects associated with his department. Although he really had no responsibility to our office, he enthusiastically joined in most of the projects we rolled out during the next 5 years. The Director of Information Services was an immense help in forwarding our objectives too. He had originally been brought on years before, to initiate a GIS for the County. He had not worked in GIS for quite a few years, but understood the basic concepts; as well as the importance of a structured and well-documented approach to building and maintaining a useful GIS.
While this situation probably would have been quite a challenge for someone just finishing college, I had enough background to make a good run of it. I had already been in the business world for 20 years and just then leaving an Analyst role I had been in for 2 years with a financial software firm. Prior to that, I spent 5 years working with a team in my own company providing creative services, primarily in photography and event production, and pre-social media web marketing and promotional support. For the 13 years before that time, I proved my technical worth, rising through the ranks of a semi-local financial firm in various technology roles from quality assurance, helping structure production standards, statistical analytics, database management, data modeling, software and hardware support, software design and development, and even a little web production in the early days of HTML.
