Andy Dearing is the CEO of Boundless and previously held the role of the Vice President of Professional Services. A commercial pilot and self-taught geographer, Andy has been working with GIS for nearly 15 years. He can often be found working from one of Boundless’ many locales, or at a number of industry events and philanthropic endeavors throughout the year. Andy resides in Missouri with his wife and four kids, where he enjoys hiking, fishing, and woodworking – when he is not out camping with his son’s Boy Scout troop.
Andrew was interviewed for GeoHipster by Todd Barr.
Q: For those in our audience who do not know, please describe Boundless.
A: Boundless provides a commercially-supported open geographic information system (GIS) ecosystem, which includes a unique combination of technology, products, and experts. We provide expertise and support around many world-class open source geospatial projects – PostGIS, GeoServer, OpenLayers, QGIS, GeoNode, and more.
More than 90 fantastic team members call Boundless home. Although we are a pretty virtual company, we have offices in St. Louis, New York, Washington DC, New Orleans, and Victoria, BC. We work with many organizations worldwide who understand the value of GIS, the power of open source, and the world-class support Boundless is known for.
Q: Did you find your career in spatial or did the spatial career find you?
A: You can definitely say spatial found me! My college degree was in Aviation Science and Aviation Management, where I was a certified flight instructor and commercial pilot. However, this was not too long after 9/11, when the aviation industry had hit rock-bottom. So with few pilot jobs available, I by chance went to a job fair where a mapping startup was looking for pilots to make aeronautical charts in GIS. From then on, I have been in GIS… it’s been a fun ride!
Q: Each city’s geo community has its own flavor; how would you describe the spatial community in St. Louis?
A: I would consider St. Louis a very strong center for GIS. There are a couple anchor tenants in St. Louis who drive the vocation – namely the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), Monsanto – as well as many more local organizations who have adopted and are using GIS extensively in their business operations.
There are several organizations around the area that are evangelizing GIS. The Maptime STL chapter has been a strong group, promoting open data and GIS technologies for collaborative learning, exploration, and map creation. The St. Louis GIS User Group is also a fairly active group in the area.
There are several educational institutions in and around St. Louis that have fantastic geography and GIS programs. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville has a phenomenal Geography department with focused programs in GIS, cartography, sustainability, and more. Washington University and Saint Louis University also have growing geography programs and GIS labs as well.
Q: What have you found to be the largest hurdles to organizations adopting an open source solution? What strategies have you developed to alleviate these concerns?
A: Many organizations still have not heard about open source, nor are they aware of what open source geospatial tools are out there. So many times, we have to help organizations understand how open source works, how the community around open source governs the code (contributors, steering committees, etc.), how new features are contributed to the product, and for Boundless, how the projects can be supported. Once organizations understand what open source is, they quickly realize all the benefits of adopting open source for their operations.
The second challenge we see organizations (including many of our customers) experience is understanding where to start. Open source geospatial projects are extremely powerful, robust technologies. But for customers transitioning off proprietary technologies or new to GIS, it can sometimes be overwhelming to figure out where to start. Boundless helps make open source geospatial technologies easier to adopt and integrate through training courses, certification programs, and professional services… all backed by our helpdesk and online support.
The biggest hurdle we see is that many business do not want to completely scrap all the work they put in with proprietary solutions. Having been in the GIS community since the early 2000s, we know that, historically, there have only been two options – proprietary or open source – and not much in between. Boundless makes it easy to have a hybrid solution that utilizes both open source and proprietary tools. The product is affordable and user-friendly, yet very powerful and professional, enabling organizations to have the best of both worlds.
Q: I volunteer at CSU, and the students I interact with simply haven’t heard of open source solutions. Is Boundless currently doing outreach to students or planning on doing so in the future?
A: Yes! Boundless has developed an Academic Engagement initiative, where we support colleges and universities with software, documentation, and training to jump-start their programs – for free! Also, with the recent launch of Boundless Connect, we offer a full suite of software, videos, training, tutorials, documentation, and more to make the most out of your open source experience – this is all free for students and educators as well.
From an outreach perspective, Boundless staff supported many GIS Day and Geography Awareness Week events – a detailed recap can be found in this blog post.
For me, one of the most inspiring events was being able to sponsor 51 teachers to participate in the Geography 2050 Symposium on November 17-18. These high school AP Human Geography teachers and American Geographical Society AP Teacher Fellows participated in a Mapathon to learn about OSM and open data, as well as listened to powerful presentations on sustainability from industry leaders. These educators are transforming the next generation of geographers, and we could not be more honored to support them.
Q: With the “stew” of GIS, data science and big data all fusing together, there have been a number of open source projects, like GeoMesa, popping up. How is Boundless adapting?
A: This is a great example of how quickly open source projects have been established to handle and support emerging IT trends. We are seeing many great projects, like GeoMesa, become the technology of choice to handle specific big-data analysis and visualization. This is not easy, but smart engineers (like the folks at CCRi) have been able to assemble code that massively scales to crunch through all the information you throw at it. We see numerous open source projects popping up that are solving some of these complex problems: GeoWave for big data analytics, GeoTrellis for imagery and rasters, and many more.
The cool part about all these projects is their interoperability with GIS projects like GeoServer. There is a great case study from CCRi on how GeoMesa integrates with GeoServer here. And likewise, we package the GeoMesa plugin for GeoServer with Boundless Suite, so our users can seamlessly set up and start seeing value from their big/large data sources.
So what is Boundless’ position? We do GIS, and we do it pretty well. If there are other open source projects out there that feature complex data science, imagery processing, or data analytics, we want to build connections to those projects. Let the GIS technologies do GIS, and likewise, let the big data / analytics technologies do big data / analytics. The beauty of open source is we can make these things work together, without trying to crack proprietary code, and give the users the most powerful technology platform to solve their business needs.
Q: Is there anything exciting coming out of the Boundless Skunkworks you can share?
A: C’mon, there’s always something exciting coming out of Boundless! We have been working hard on several cool projects recently and I am super excited to give you a sneak peek.
First, we are set to unveil a massively scalable version of GeoServer for large-scale enterprises in early 2017. This will blow any existing server-tier GIS platform out of the water. Code-named GeoServer EC, we are able to instantly scale up/out hundreds, if not thousands, of GeoServer microservices to process however much geospatial data you throw at it. So as the amount of location-based information exponentially increases over the next five years, GeoServer EC can scale up/out to meet those demands:
Second, we are going to be launching our Connect API, which will sit behind Boundless Connect, to stream content and services directly to your Desktop and Web applications. And to let you in on a little unannounced secret – we have established data partnerships with two premier geospatial content firms just recently… so you will soon be able to directly access beautiful base maps, driving directions, imagery, and more, directly inside the Boundless suite of products with your existing Boundless subscription. And we will be continually adding more data services throughout 2017:
Q: According to your LinkedIn profile, one of your hobbies is woodworking. Do you have any piece you’re particularly proud of?
A: Ha! Let’s just say I am a very amateur woodworker and am humbled by all the amazing work out there from those who are true artists. Me, I tend to hack at it when I get a few free moments – which seem to be fewer and farther between these days!
For me, woodworking is an opportunity to actually produce something (outside of emails) with my hands. Even if the output is not perfect, it is something you can call your own. Whether you are molding clay or carving wood or knitting or crocheting, it is so rewarding to be able to spend time making something you are proud of with your own two hands.
Personally, there are two (different) pieces that I am proud of. My favorite piece of furniture that I made was a hutch that took me, well, it took me forever to make. But I learned so much along the way.
The second was more of a “construction” project, creating built-ins in the laundry room to attempt to tackle all of my four kids’ coats, shoes, book bags, and whatever other junk they can manage to fill them with. This was one of the more fun projects, and it made my wife rather happy. 🙂
Q: Lastly, do you consider yourself a geohipster?
A: Ah, this question… I figured I would get away without you asking it. I consider myself in the “GeoHipster Fan Club.” I have a GeoHipster shirt, attend geo meetups, and get excited when I see dots on a map. Now I just need a GeoHipster sticker…
But in all seriousness, there are so many awesome geohipsters out there who continue to push the science of geography, GIS, remote sensing, and spatial analysis further and deeper. It is such an amazing time to be in the geospatial profession, and I could not be happier to be a part of a company and a community who continue to push it forward in new and more open ways.