GIS in Business

One of the great things about GIS is that it can be used for many different fields. For example, ESRI lists a few of the major industry areas for GIS as: 

• Public Safety
• Health and Human Services
• Architecture, Engineering & Construction
• Science
• State and Local Governments
• Natural Resources 
• Conservation
• Transportation
• ....And many more!

Application areas are pretty much unlimited. For instance, during the pandemic, GIS was used to map and model COVID19 outbreaks, document medical supply inventory, and manage testing sites (https://www.esri.com/en-us/covid-19/response#inventory-and-map-resources). Also, hurricane tracks and storm surge estimates are created with the assistance of GIS modeling and, after the storm passes, it also aids in disaster relief, field data collection, and post-storm damage analysis (https://www.esri.com/en-us/disaster-response/disasters/hurricanes?srsltid=AfmBOoq88lXJN48476zmJwaqINfM0la4c6V2-z5ncUok0g6Yb28vyCzC). Therefore, GIS is an area that will likely experience growth in the near future and will make a great career. Job titles can vary depending on the industry, but titles may include key words like "spatial data analyst," "cartographer," "GIS technician," or "GIS analyst."

My interest is towards the environmental management field, which can include subareas such as natural resource management or conservation. Some examples that I have found through researching jobs related to these areas include marine fisheries management, state and federal wildlife agencies, ecological research studies, forestry and agriculture, costal change analysis, conservation land management, etc. I love the idea of combining my background in biology and environmental science with GIS and I believe any one of these GIS areas would be a great opportunity.