Edgardo David | Profiles from the Geospatial Community

Edgardo David started working in the GIS field twenty-five years ago, moving from the Philippines to work in Japan.  The last fourteen years have been with a local southern California city where we were co-workers for seven years.  Now a Senior GIS Analyst, David also helps young students in the Philippines achieve their educational dreams with a foundation that pays their tuition.  

1. How did you get involved with GIS? What drew you to this industry?

I got involved in GIS by accident or I should say out of desperation. My background is Civil Engineering and after 3 years working in Saudi Arabia back in 1988, I was out of job when I went back to the Philippines. I found this newspaper ad from a start-up company looking for qualified applicants for GIS personnel. Needless to say, I applied not knowing what GIS was all about and was hired and sent to Tokyo Japan to do on-the-job training in Arc/Info digitizing, analysis, mapping, and AML programming. The ability to analyze geographic data and visualize them thru colorful maps drew me to this industry.

2. You’ve had a long history with GIS.  Please describe your early days in GIS.  

My first two years of GIS were quite challenging but also exciting as I get to travel to Japan and get paid at the same time while learning this new technology. It’s even more challenging when I migrated to the US in 1990 and could not find a GIS-related job after 5  years of searching. It was in 1995 when I got my foot back to GIS as a data-entry person in a consulting firm. That day became my GIS-defining moment as I continue to grow with the industry and brought me to where I am now, working as a Senior GIS Analyst in a local government.

3.  How has working GIS changed for the better? What do you miss about the “old days of GIS?”

GIS has evolved a lot since the old days to the point I can’t keep up anymore with the changing technology. However, I never missed the “simplicity of it” as I still continue to use/apply the old ways I learned from the early days of GIS suffice it to say that I still use the old, simple but reliable Arcview 3x for many of the tasks I need to accomplish.