Working out there in the real world of GIS is an eye opener. As the newbie GIS Intern with the Middle Georgia Regional Commission, I have the privilege of producing a map or two. For many, your daily job consists of more gis tasks that I could imagine doing in a week.
Our Regional Commission serves as the GIS technical department for 11 local counties, including
the cities within, their sheriff departments and any other department which has the need for a gis
product. Many are too small to have staff or to justify the mapping software. We have become the
web service for several of them; now serving as the mapping service and their public viewing web station of their tax parcels data instead of them using the old qpublic.net web service.
This is why this Planner/GIS Specialist caught my eye. At the internship, many of the GIS (Techs) serve as pseudo planners with many of them having master degrees in planning or public administration. As part of their job they personally visit the county departments, visit on site for economic development ventures or any other project they are "mapping". Personal interaction with the clients is a vital part of their positions. They serve the people, helping others.
Although this job description does not mention personal interactions, it is the mission statement
of most planning/regional commissions to be interconnected with the people they serve. Having the
GIS skills to produce map products for the visualization of the varied projects the counties need
assistance with is the technical icing.
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