SEARCH

I am not sure why I ended up as a civil engineer. I guess it has something to do with my father being in the construction, engineering trades. It amazes me that I am registered professional engineer in the state of Texas.

I recall beginning college without much idea of what I wanted to do. I took a semester or two of business class and was bored out of my mind. Not to mention that I seemed to hate all the people around me. I ended up in the College of Engineering.

I like the classes, despite the efforts of Dr. Arroyo. Actually, I enjoyed them all. After Statics and Dynamics, Reinforced Concrete and other classes, I kept taking classes till the University told me that I could stop. I was going to graduate in 1996!!! WOW.

I worked with several, small consulting engineering companies. The effort that I made to work in small firms paid off. I got to do a lot of different things. All in all, it was interesting. Especially my introduction to Softdesk and later, Land Development Desktop. For awhile there, I was quite the power user. Then came the Super Target.

In 2001, I helped put up a Super Target. I helped pave over 118 acres of perfectly good land to put in a strip mall. Although I was not ready to sign up as a bunny loving, tree hugger; I was done doing land development engineering. I decided to leave the country, never to return.

I moved to Palau and became the Acting Director of the Bureau of Lands and Surveys in the Ministry of Resources and Development in Republic of Palau. This was the best job ever!!!.

Best of all, I got introduced to GIS through the fine folks at the Palau Automated Land Resource Information System (PALARIS) in Palau. Through these people and a chance meeting with Monty Hempel, I ended up in the MSGIS program at the University of Redlands in California. It was here that I earned a Masters in GIS and met a wonderful woman. Although we knew each other for a short time, she made a serious impression on me. She knows who she is and I hope she is deliriously happy. I digress though.

All this made my current job at the San Antonio River Authority possible. When I got back to San Antonio, all I wanted was a job that I could do GIS and engineering. Of course, San Antonio is 10 years behind everything and I almost ended up cooking in a Chinese restaurant instead of finding a real job.

I thought I was going to end up doing consulting engineering again. I really did not want to put up subdivisions again. Providence stepped in and gave me the job that I have today. I am currently getting to play in the following areas: hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, GIS analysis, enterprise GIS development, SDE administration, database development, software development and ArcIMS. Where else could I play in all those areas? I am too lucky!!!!!!

U.T.S.A.
www.utsa.edu

Redlands MSGIS Program
www.institute.redlands.edu

HEC Center
www.hec.usace.army.mil

ESRI
www.esri.com

San Antonio River Authority
www.sara-tx.org