A Name That Says It All!

Cloudpoint has gone through various internal changes so far this year; from adapting to remote work, to investing in AWS services to optimize our use of ArcGIS Indoors and Enterprise, to expanding our virtual training efforts with free webinars. After much consideration by the team, we are ready to publicly announce our new name as Cloudpoint Geospatial. This new name better describes the services that we provide and more accurately encompasses our overall purpose. Included in this blog is a video announcement of our company founder, Jonathan Hodel, welcoming on this exciting change and explaining the why behind it.

We hope you’ll take a second to watch our announcement video.

Even though our name has changed, we still strive to fulfill the same mission and purpose.

In this video, Cloudpoint Geospatial founder, Jonathan Hodel, describes the meaning of 'Geospatial' as the company changes its name from Geographics to Geosp...

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Our Mission:

Find fulfillment in serving people throughout the world by teaching them the value of spatial data and utilizing it to enhance each other’s daily lives.

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Our Purpose:

We are here to provide tools & services that enable organizations to make informed, data-driven decisions based on spatial location.

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Congrats to Jodi, Matt, and Tyler!

Jodi, Tyler, and Matt have been a part of the team for 5 years! Though they all have differing roles, they each surpass their work titles to serve both staff and clients. It’s evident that these three will drop what their doing to help you. Jodi, Tyler, and Matt, you have been crucial in providing quality services to clients and keeping Cloudpoint well and thriving.

Tyler (Left), Matt, and Jodi pictured outside our office.

In separate interviews with all 3 employees, they all said there favorite thing about working at Cloudpoint was the rest of the staff and the fun that we have together. These answers spoke louder than I thought to who we are and what we stand for are here.

We have had many staff lunches, Friday afternoon mini-golf games, and laughs together in our normal days’ work. It is clear that we are not just co-workers but a team here at Cloudpoint.

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Jodi at her desk ready to greet clients or staff returning from lunch with a smile.

Jodi:

She is a jack of many trades here at Cloudpoint. Her duties range anywhere from administrative to bookkeeping to marketing. Jodi enjoys doing the books the most out her daily duties. In a typical day, she makes trips to the bank, works on marketing lists, answers the phone, approves time-sheets, and much more. She has many responsibilities behind the scene that allow us to work with ease knowing she’s got our back.

Jodi, her husband, and 3 boys plan to visit each state. This year they planned to go to California, Oregon, and Washington and now they are waiting to see if COVID-19 guidelines change. Her family loves to spend time outside in sunny or snowy weather by going hiking or skiing.

Thank you, Jodi, for your dedication to making sure that everyone, staff or client, is taken care of! Your work does not go unnoticed!

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Tyler pictured here using Collector on the IPad which is connected to the Trimble R2 GNSS to gather GNSS data.

Tyler:

Tyler bounces between working in the office and doing field work. His titles are GIS Technician and Drone (UAV) Pilot. He has helped with culvert and sign inventories, overhauling utility networks, and much more. Out of Tyler’s array of duties his favorite in GNSS Data Collection.

Outside of work, Tyler is a student at Illinois Central College studying Geography which keeps him busy during the school year. He will be finishing his associates in science this fall. In his leisure, he also enjoys playing Frisbee golf.

Thank you Tyler for your hard work and willingness to always give a helping hand!

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Matt:

Matt provides a lot of our managed services for clients. Even on days he is not at a client site, you can often find him on a call or fulfilling a request someone has sent to him. However Matt says he loves the variety of work for which we are grateful. Aside from managed services, Matt does a majority of the work for our Parcel fabric clients. He is also the leader of our Parcel Fabric team.

Matt makes sure to keep up with sports such as baseball, and basketball. He is also a coach for his son’s baseball team this year. Though not a sport, he also enjoys hiking, getting outside, and live music.

Thank you, Matt for all you do in keeping up with our managed services clients as well as the diligence you put forth in your work!

Matt is pictured here diligently assisting one of our county clients with parcel fabric data maintenance.

Cloudpoint Now Offering Services Living up to its namesake

It’s rather interesting, some of the comments we get about the name of our company when people are first introduced to us. They say “Cloudpoint, hmm, is that some kind of cloud-based service, do you work with point clouds, etc.?” As company founder Jonathan Hodel notes, “when we started up in 2011, my wife, Megan and I were discussing several options for names and wanted something that spoke to the technology we are using. As a geospatial company, I knew point clouds were a key part of the services we were offering but at the same time ‘the cloud’ was becoming a popular way to store, manage, and process data.” Proof of this can be found in the fact that company adopted use of the cloud as a way of doing business right from the start.

Using file storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive, then in 2012 becoming an Esri Business Partner and launching its first ArcGIS Server environment in a completely cloud-hosted environment on Amazon’s AWS platform, Cloudpoint is putting its money where its name is. Hodel states, “I like to be able to tell people we’ve never actually ‘owned’ a server and have never had a box in the back room”. At first hearing this, you might think they’ve saved tons of money on hardware and networking costs over the years, however that’s not necessarily the case as the company has invested almost $50,000 in AWS services alone between Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2’s), S3 storage, and Workspaces. Now the company uses multiple AWS EC2 servers for tasks such as testing and deployment of new ArcGIS Enterprise software packages, project work needing multi-editor environments, and even staging environments for new applications such as Esri’s ArcGIS Indoors.

Now the company is excited to announce its latest service offering of cloud-hosted GIS architecture for organizations looking to migrate their GIS network into a secured cloud environment. Customers can even pair this offering with Cloudpoint’s managed services to have a complete, turn-key Enterprise GIS solution allowing them to focus on their end-user applications and workflows. With this approach, Cloudpoint will launch, deploy, and maintain your complete GIS server architecture in Amazon’s AWS cloud environment giving you as much or as little involvement as you prefer. Yes, that’s right, no need to worry about future server upgrades, monitoring logs, or up-time statistics. Isn’t it time to be done with ‘boxes in the back room’? Contact their professional services or call 877-377-8124 for a brief consultation to see if migrating to the cloud is right for you.

Cloudpoint Team Member, Micah Williamson, Earns Distinguished Award!

Have you heard? Our very own, Micah Williamson, earned the Hilton Distinguished Collaboration Award at the ILGISA Conference. Micah has been a member of the Cloudpoint team for 7 years, but has been working in the GIS industry for 18 years. At Cloudpoint, he works as our Geospatial Services Director and a certified GISP (Geographic Information Systems Professional). If he doesn’t already sound busy enough, you’ll be surprised to hear that Micah is currently continuing his education (Master’s Degree) at Eastern Illinois University. Micah has a great passion for the work he does.

On October 22nd during the ILGISA Conference, Micah received the Hilton Distinguished Collaboration Award. One award is given out annually at each conference. According to ILGISA, “the Hilton Distinguished Collaboration Award is presented to an individual who has provided extraordinary service to the GIS community in the advancement of coordination between GIS professionals. This award is presented to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the promotion of cooperation within our community and with the people we serve.”

In an interview with Micah, he mentioned that he always strives to do things that would focus on people sharing with each other: ideas, concepts, and even data. Micah emphasized that collaboration is a vital aspect of communication. Later in the interview, Micah spoke out about about his long-lived inclination for collaboration. “I’ve always kind of bent towards talking about what someone is doing or encouraging people to go out and present what they’re doing. Tell your story rather than, you know, keep it quiet.”

We are proud of Micah and his achievement and we will continue to focus on collaboration to better our services to you.

[1.] https://www.ilgisa.org/awards.html

Congratulations to Matt Junker, our latest GISP!

Congratulations to Cloudpoint's, Matt Junker, for becoming the team's latest certified GIS Professional (GISP).  Matt recently sat for the GISP examination through the GIS Certification Institute (GISCI) back in June.   Obtaining a GISP certificate involves an extensive application process which now includes the exam requirement.   A certified GISP is someone who has proven to be dedicated to the GIS profession and has a clear grasp on geospatial concepts and how to apply them.

“Matt is clearly one of the most dedicated GIS professionals in the industry", says Hodel. “He has a tremendous impact on our team’s ability to solve critical problems with geospatial solutions”. One of Matt’s main responsibilities at Cloudpoint is to provide on-going solutions to their managed GIS services clients. Matt also serves as the team leader for the company’s parcel fabric team.

Certified Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Professional endorsed by a 3rd party (GISCI) though a peer-reviewed evaluation.The GIS Certification Institute (GISCI) is a non-profit organization that provides the GIS community with a complete certification program, leading to GISP® (Certified GIS Professional) recognition. GISCI offers participants around the world, from the first early years on the job until retirement, a method of showing competence as professionals to employers in the GIS profession. We offer the only industry-wide, internationally-recognized, software-agnostic certification available to geospatial professionals. The following are some notes highlighting what makes a certified GISP:

• Has met the minimum standards for educational achievement, professional experience, and manner in which he or she contributes back to the profession, and practices in an ethical manner.

• Must abide by higher guidelines for ethical behavior.

• Continues to educate and reeducate him or herself while preparing for recertification.

• Has had their professional background scrutinized and reviewed by an independent third party organization. An Institute comprised of leading non-profit associations (AAG, NSGIC, UCGIS, GITA, URISA, and GLIS) focused on the application of GIS and geospatial technology.

• Can come from anywhere in the world, and current, active GISPs reside in all 50 States and 25 foreign countries.

• Is more than a practitioner of GIS technology.

• Is a Professional.

Well done Matt!

City of Pekin ready for GIS Excellence

The Cloudpoint is excited to have the opportunity to take the City of Pekin’s GIS to the next level. The city has used Cloudpoint’s professional GIS services off and on for the past five years but after losing their full-time GIS coordinator last fall, they realized the critical importance of maintaining their GIS system and decided to take their relationship with Cloudpoint from one of courting, to a more serious partnership. With that, Cloudpoint and the City of Pekin have engaged in a two-year contract for professional GIS services to support the various departments throughout the city. The team has begun intensive meetings with city staff to further dive into their needs and how they can better utilize the GIS system for their daily workflows. With the new contract, Cloudpoint staff will be onsite for up to 30 hours per month, with additional technical support services coming in the forms of enterprise GIS management and GIS application deployment. One of the main objectives is to enable city staff to take more ownership of GIS data and make edits and updates for their department with user-friendly web-based applications. The Client has a wealth of GIS data which has been well managed and distributed in the past but with greater editing capabilities, the use of real-time GIS updates should further enhance the value of their data. In addition, the city hopes to easily share this authoritative data both internally as well as externally to contractors, consultants, and developers. For more information on Cloudpoint’s Managed Professional Services (MPS) please contact us or call 877-377-8124.

Stephenson earns GISP certificate

Congratulations to Cloudpoint's, Paul Stephenson, for becoming the team's latest certified GIS Professional (GISP).  Paul was one of the very first people to sit for the newly established GISP examination through the GIS Certification Institute (GISCI) which he took last November.  With his professionalism and outstanding work ethic it was no surprise that he passed with flying colors.  Obtaining a GISP certificate involves an extensive application process which now includes the exam requirement.  With Paul's achievements, he joins Jon & Micah bringing the total number of GISP certified staff members at Cloudpoint to three.  The following are some notes highlighting what makes a certified GISP:

Pictured are Paul Stephenson (left) and Jon Hodel (right) with Paul's new GISP certification

•  Certified Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Professional endorsed by a 3rd party (GISCI) though a peer-reviewed evaluation. 
• Has met the minimum standards for educational achievement, professional experience, and manner in which he or she contributes back to the profession, and practices in an ethical manner. 
• Must abide by higher guidelines for ethical behavior. 
• Continues to educate and reeducate him or herself while preparing for recertification. 
• Has had their professional background scrutinized and reviewed by an independent third party organization. An Institute comprised of leading non-profit associations (AAG, NSGIC, UCGIS, GITA, URISA, and GLIS) focused on the application of GIS and geospatial technology. 
• Can come from anywhere in the world, and current, active GISPs reside in all 50 States and 25 foreign countries.
• Is more than a practitioner of GIS technology. 
• Is a Professional.

Well done Paul!

Open wide..... We've Moved!

Growing up, I had a mouth full of cavities and now have plenty of fillings to show for it.  Little did I know at that time (back when I though I wanted to be a fireman) I would soon be making a living by working in that same building where I would go for routine checkups and teeth cleaning.   No, didn't go in to dentistry (although if you stop by we could take a look at your teeth but I wouldn't trust our diagnosis).  We recently purchased the former dentist office in Roanoke where just a few short months ago people were getting crowns and caps, now it is used for drones, ipads and desktop PC's.  We are excited to make it our new home here at Cloudpoint Geographics.  

Ten (10) weeks of renovations consisted of ripping our old sinks and X-ray boxes, hoses, lines, excess wiring, tons of painting, new carpet, and best of all- the lighting.  We converted an old lab into a kitchen, and exam rooms are now functioning as high-tech office space.   The large window view that so many of us distracted ourselves with while a hygienist scraped on our jowls,  is now enjoyed by our staff as each person has their own private office.

We are blessed to have a new spot that so perfectly fits our current needs and the move was just across the parking lot from our old location.  Be sure to come by and visit us during our upcoming Open House on October 2nd from 4PM to 6PM.