Landon Blake's Bio

I spent the majority of my pre-teen years living in several different states west of the Mississippi River, including California, Oregon, Nevada, Montana, and Nebraska. My dad worked in heavy construction and my family regularly traveled through Idaho and Washington in addition to the frequent relocations. When I was an early teenager my family finally settled down in northwest Montana, and my parents bought property near the North Fork of the Flathead River, a stone’s throw from Glacier National Park and about 30 miles south of the Canadian border with the United States. I worked several jobs in Montana during my teens and early twenties, including two dishwashing jobs in the town of West Glacier, Montana; a six (6) year stint at the Safeway in Whitefish, Montana, and several winter and summer seasons working in the facilities maintenance department of the Big Mountain Ski Resort.

I enrolled in the land surveying program at Flathead Valley Community College, where I enjoyed instruction in land surveying and GIS from Dave Dorsett and Bob Beall. I received my AAS degree in land surveying in the spring of 2002. After my graduation I took a job with KSN Consulting Civil Engineers and Land Surveyors, a small company located in Stockton, California. It was there that I met my wife Monique. We bought our first home in Stockton in the summer of 2008.

I passed the national land surveyor exam in the fall of 2007 and the California state land surveying exam in the Spring of 2008. I currently serve as a project surveyor in my employment with KSN. In this role I manage the various surveying aspects of large public works projects and smaller commercial development projects. This includes survey control; topographic surveys; boundary surveys; preparation of maps, plats, and legal descriptions; and drafting of maps and civil engineering plans. I also oversee the implementation of GIS technology at KSN.

My first exposure to GIS was in classes I shared at Flathead Valley Community College with the forestry program. I became interested in the open source desktop GIS program JUMP after my employment with KSN. I was so intrigued with the program that taught myself the Java programming language so I could customize and improve the program. After a couple of years of involvement with the program I founded the JUMP Pilot Project with another JUMP user and developer, Steve Tanner. I still contribute as a user of OpenJUMP (the descendant of JUMP maintained by the JPP). I am constantly seeking ways to improve the integration of GIS, land surveying, and civil engineering. This includes applying GIS technology to the problems I encounter as a land surveyor through the use of open source software and open technology.

I’ve been using Autodesk’s AutoCAD software continuously since I took my first CAD class at Flathead Valley Community College. I’ve worked on several different versions of AutoCAD, including Version 2000, Version 2004, Version 2007, Version 2008 and Version 2009. I’m currently using AutoCAD Civil 3D on a daily basis, and also work with AutoCAD MAP and AutoCAD Raster Design. I began to learn AutoLISP programming shortly after my employment at KSN.

I volunteer with several open source organizations. At the non-profit advocate of open source geospatial software the OSGeo I serve as an author, editor, and reviewer for the OSGeo Journal. I have also served as a mentor for the OSGeo Google Summer of Code program. The California Land Surveyors Association has a local chapter, for whom I am currently serving as Chapter Treasurer.