GIS Internship - An ad for a dream job!

Here's a link for an interesting geology-related job with ESRI in Redlands, California:

ESRI - Consultant/Project Manager - Petroleum / Mining

• Where did you find this position? 

I found this position on the ESRI site, careers area.

After learning and working with ArcGIS, I think it would be really interesting to work for ESRI.  They seem very innovative.  I have a lot of education and experience in geology, so I looked for a job relating to that. 

This position would be located in Redlands, California, at the ESRI headquarters.  Redlands is a really charming historic town surrounded by mountains, on the edge of the desert outside Los Angeles.  It’s distinctive for its many beautiful Victorian houses, palm-lined avenues, and many old orange groves right in the town.  In the early days of the movie industry, the stars lived here instead of Beverly Hills.  The University of Redlands is located here.

• What are the requirements, including education and technical skills? 

The job requirements do not specifically mention educational requirements.  However, the primary requirements are 1) at least seven years of experience in mining or petroleum-related fields; 2) in-depth knowledge of GIS and experience with ArcGIS products and specific applications to mining and petroleum.  The expectations also include being able to work with clients to help them align their goals with what ESRI has to offer, and enough familiarity with software development methodologies to lead teams of ESRI programmers toward meeting those goals.  This position also requires strong leadership and general people skills.  Whoever fills this position needs to work as a liaison between industry and those that develop new applications at ESRI

This job seems ideal to me, but would be quite a stretch, from where I stand now.  I do have, cumulatively, more than 7 years of industry experience.  However, moving around a lot and raising 3 kids over the last 20+ years has caused my work experience to be quite fragmented.  I have learned a lot in this GIS program, but what specifically industry-related GIS experience I have is very outdated.   In the meantime, I would need to find work that would help me build up my practical experience.  

What I plan to do right now is work with my sister, who got her GIS certificate from UWF last year, in helping our dad with his small minerals exploration company.  Hopefully that, with the help of GIS and remote sensing mentors, will help me further my GIS expertise

• What class within the GIS Cohort do you think has prepared you the most for this position?

So far, Applications and Special Topics have been equally valuable to me for learning to use ArcMap to identify and solve problems from the most basic level, and finding ways to creatively utilize the tools.  Success in this position would depend on an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the tools, and an ability to identify how they can be used in new situations. 

An understanding of Python programming, which I will complete this summer, would be necessary to help integrate specialized software packages already in use in these industries, with ArcGIS.

The Remote Sensing course seems very pertinent to geologic specialties, because of the dependence of geologic interpretation on air photo and satellite image interpretation and multispectral analysis.