VP Candidate Tim Walz and GIS Maps

I invite you to go over to my Mapping For Justice blog and read about Minnesota Governor Tim Walz's long history with GIS maps.  click here

This article includes a link to an ESRI blog article that provides a great overview of Walz's  history with maps.  

This means a lot to me, since my history goes back to 1993 when I began to learn about GIS mapping.  In 1995 ESRI donated software that the Tutor/Mentor Connection used to make maps from then until 2011.

Below is an image showing a collection of map stories, created since 1995, using donated ESRI software, and using the interactive Tutor/Mentor Program Locator which was built for the Tutor/Mentor Connection by a team from India in 2008.  See it in this article. 

I wish I'd connected with Tim Walz 20 year ago. Maybe I'd still be hosting this mapping resource and maybe more leaders would be using maps the way I've described in dozens of articles, to point resources to places where people need extra help.

I've two sets of links in the Tutor/Mentor library to pages where I show uses of GIS maps.  This page, and this page.  

Any leader, in any city or state, could use my library as part of their own research and development information base.  I keep adding to it.  For instance, I added links to the ESRI article and the Minnesota Mapping page yesterday.

I hope someone will introduce my blog to Gov Tim Walz once he becomes Vice President Tim Walz, and that he will champion this use of maps throughout the country and provide the resources organizations need to not only create maps, but create on-going stories that draw more viewers to the maps and the information they share, then to places where the maps show people need more help. 

This was me in the mid 1990s, using a map from a Chicago Tribune story, to emphasize the need to help kids in every high poverty area of Chicago.  I wish I had a collection of similar photos, where the person in the photo was one of our former mayors or governors.

If you know of others with great mapping resources connect with me on social media. Visit this page to find links to where I'm active.

If you value the information I'm sharing please visit this page and send a contribution to help me pay the bills.  Thank you.