Google Isn't Always Accurate and We Do a Lot More Than Make Pretty Maps. A Chat with Justin Annan.

Have you ever come across an error in a project and felt overwhelmed? Now imagine finding 60,000 errors in that project!  Where would you begin? Justin Annan is the GIS Analyst and MSAG and Street Naming Coordinator at the Authority.  Justin served in the Marine Corps in field artillery and deployed to Iraq.  He also studied Journalism at UCCS before switching to Geographic Information Systems. Hear how this former marine conquered a very large project and more in this episode! This episode breaks down and defines:GIS.  What is it?  According to Justin, Geographic Information Systems (or GIS) is the process of gathering, managing, and analyzing spatial data to tie it to locations and symbolize it in different ways.Site points.  Our two-county region has over 300,000 of them along with 50,000 road segments. But what is a site point? What’s a building footprint? How does GIS pull all of this information together?Road centerline data. The road centerline data includes attributes like the speed limit, traffic direction, address ranges, the community, county, and more.Plat maps.  You can also learn more about plat maps and other GIS legal descriptions on the Assessor's webpage.The street naming process. Discover that MSAG stands for Master Street Address Guide which includes all of the different road segments and address points for our region.  While it's not a spatial data set or connected to our 9-1-1 data, it must synchronize with both types of data.​​​​​​You will also hear about the updating process and how it's changed to a more simplified, streamlined process. As well as his upcoming project road naming convention project. Creating alias names for roads to make them easier to find for call takers/dispatchers and other responders.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Justin recommends:Reading Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, especially if you are interested in Science-Fiction.Going on walks to reduce stress.Listening to heavy metal.  Some of his favorites include The Browning, Viral Millennium, and Arch Enemy.