surprise surprise
Tim Walz is a map nerd
Harris’s new running mate has been obsessed with mapping software GIS since the early 1990s—and uses maps as a critical governing tool in Minnesota.
“He’s one of us, Jack.” So said one of the presenters at the 2024 Esri User Conference, held in July—an event for mapmakers who use GIS software—as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz walked out on the stage.
Walz, now the Democratic nominee for vice president, shared a little of his history with the crowd. Growing up in a small town in Nebraska, he spent summers working on a cattle ranch. At the end of the day, back in the bunk house at the ranch, he read through old issues of National Geographic, sparking an early interest in geography. Later, after joining the army, he became a geography teacher. And at a geography conference in the early 1990s, he picked up a floppy disk with a free copy of Esri’s GIS (“geographic information systems”) software.
He quickly taught himself how to use it. “I said to my colleagues, ‘This is going to change the way we teach and change the world,’” Walz said at the event last month. Walz’s love for maps eventually influenced how the state rolled out programs to fight childhood poverty and how the state communicated about the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. And if the Harris-Walz ticket wins this November, it will undoubtedly play a role in his work in the White House.
Maps to help fight COVID-19
As a teacher, he used GIS to help students learning about the Holocaust understand that genocide could happen again. In 1993, his high school students in Nebraska built a global map that included layers with details about food insecurity, drought, and colonialism to try to predict where the next genocide could be. “They came up with Rwanda,” Walz told the crowd. “Twelve months later, the world witnessed the horrific genocide in Rwanda.” Many of the students went on to work at nonprofits.
Using maps across the legislative agenda
Other states also use GIS tools, but Walz’s background has meant that he can go deeper, says Pat Cummens, director of government strategy and policy solutions at Esri. “As governor, he’s been driving this idea of ‘One Minnesota,’ which means you look at everything holistically to break down barriers between agencies, so they can look at complex situations and make them more understandable and not just kind of stovepipe from one agency to another,” she says. “And putting things on the map and being able to integrate things makes that all possible.”
https://www.fastcompany.com/91168602/tim-walz-gis-map-nerd
since the 1990's, anons.