ARCHITECTURAL & CONSTRUCTION
FROM INTERN TO GIS ANALYST
EJ WATER GIS ANALYST BILL CARR
it in two weeks,” Carr said. “After that, EJ Water was pretty happy with it.”
Not long after that, Carr accepted began his time at Lake Land a full-time position at EJ Water, College right after graduating from and was able to explore several high school, but soon left to join new opportunities within his career. the Army. After several years of He also attended many service, Carr decided "DR. RUDIBAUGH conferences on topics to return to Lake Land, LET US BASICALLY related to the industry. but did not know what TAKE OVER HIS BACK he wanted to study. OFFICE TO GET IN “I just kept going, trying EXTRA PRACTICE." to learn everything there “I was a bit of a is to know about the backwoods hillbilly, so -CARR water industry and how the concept of fluvial it applied to these GIS geomorphology really appealed principles,” Carr said. “EJ was to me,” Carr said, with fluvial definitely also investing in me to geomorphology being the study of help me learn as much as I possibly river process and form. could.” Based on that interest, Carr decided to pursue a Geographic Information System (GIS) certification. Through that program, Carr earned an internship at EJ Water Cooperative in Dieterich. After spending a summer gathering data, Carr and another Lake Land College intern compiled the data onto a map. “Come to find out a third party had quoted a cost on doing that for EJ Water of several thousand dollars, and two students from Lake Land did
6 LAKE LAND COLLEGE s LAKELANDCOLLEGE.EDU
Carr expressed gratitude to Lake Land and especially Geography/ Earth Science Instructor Mike Rudibaugh for allowing him the opportunity to explore GIS information in new ways. “Dr. Rudibaugh let us basically take over his back office to get in extra practice,” Carr said. “Essentially we would get somebody else’s map, look at all the data and break it. That was just another way we would expand on what we knew and what we could do with it.”
