Employee Spotlight: Tim Lesser, GISP, Sr. GIS Specialist

1. How did you come to do what you do? Was this a lifelong goal?
While in graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, I was taking several applied GIS courses with the opportunity to work with GIS software, ArcInfo. I enjoyed the analysis and deriving options to solve real-world environmental and planning issues. I also was working as a research assistant at the school’s Urban Institute, where I started getting my feet wet in GIS by digitizing and attributing NC school district bus routes. The one event I remember well was when Esri came in and demoed the software on Unix Sun Sparc workstations, I was impressed and said that is what I want to do!

2. What motivates you every day?
The opportunity to help people succeed with the geospatial technology experience I have gained working for and with public and private customers. I enjoy collaborating with Arora and customer staff for client’s data and solution needs. Also knowing that I contributed to the development of customer GIS programs, such as FLL, ATL, PAE, and GSP. This sense of accomplishment drives me.

3. What are your favorite types of projects to work on?
Overall, there are so many distinct aspects of airport data and information I have enjoyed working with. Recently, indoors wayfinding/navigation within airport concourses and facilities. It is interesting to enhance terminal floor plans and derive pathways and transitions within/to different floor levels to route to specific points of interests, such as concessions, gates, and any other information you want to locate.

4. What is the best career lesson you’ve learned so far?
As with anything, geospatial technology change is inevitable. We must embrace and keep abreast of new enhancements, apps, and functionality in the Esri world for customers. It all starts with quality data for impactful solutions.

5. What do you enjoy most about working at Arora?
The people. I enjoy working with Arora employees and the geospatial team to accomplish tasks. Also, Arora has given me the opportunity to be more innovative and creative in the development of solutions during the projects I have been involved with. Since 2015, Arora introduced me to airport related data and information that I did not know existed before.

6. Outside of work, what do you like to do for fun?
I enjoy traveling and experiencing new places, especially abroad. I have a to-do-list to take 1-2 ‘big’ trips per year. I like trying new restaurants and food, listening to music, attending concerts and baseball games. I grew up just north of NYC, the yanks are my team. I like going to the beach, I live near the coast in Florida!