FROM INTERN TO GIS ANALYST

EJ Water GIS Analyst Bill Carr began his time at Lake Land College right after graduating from high school, but soon left to join the Army. After several years of service, Carr decided to return to Lake Land, but did not know what he wanted to study.

“I was a bit of a backwoods hillbilly, so the concept of fluvial geomorphology really appealed to me,” Carr said, with fluvial geomorphology being the study of river process and form.

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 it in two weeks,” Carr said. “After that, EJ Water was pretty happy with it.”

Not long after that, Carr accepted a full-time position at EJ Water, and was able to explore several new opportunities within his career.He also attended many conferences on topics related to the industry.

“I just kept going, trying to learn everything there is to know about the water industry and how it applied to these GIS principles,” Carr said. “EJ was definitely also investing in me to help me learn as much as I possibly could.”

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.”