Welcome Aboard, Hunter Ray!

Introduction:

We are yet again able to add on another employee to our team and we are excited to announce that it is Hunter Ray! He does not come to Cloudpoint as a stranger but actually a familiar face from past conferences. His title is GIS Analyst and he will start off by aiding Micah and the Enterprise team along with some application development work.

We are fortunate to find someone with Hunter’s education and experience.

Education:

He has a Bachelors Degree in Zoology from SIU Carbondale and a Master's in GIS from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He says one of his greatest and proudest moments was obtaining his Master’s with a 4.0 GPA while working full-time.

Work Experience:

His work experience includes work for the USDA Wildlife Services agency in Illinois as a Wildlife Biologist/GIS Specialist. Hunter spent 8.5 years as a biologist specializing in airport wildlife management, along with being in charge of developing and maintaining GIS products while providing training and support for his fellow field staff.

Accomplishments:

Hunter had the opportunity to serve as the GIS Team Lead during a FEMA Emergency Response event for flooding disaster in the spring of 2019. He also has earned a USDA’s Secretary’s Award, USDA Administrator’s Award, Gears of Government award, and two Merit awards for his professional assistance.

Hobbies & Interests:

In his leisure, Hunter enjoys hunting, golfing, keeping up with the PGA Tour, and listening to music. Snow-skiing in the winter is a must for him. He and his wife, Ariel, also love to hike, exercise at the gym, and cook together.

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.