Meet Liz Gaines, an artist extraordinaire and our Business Development Manager

We’re back with our TGG Team Bios!

In the spirit of work anniversaries, we have Liz Gaines with us, who is on the cusp of her first anniversary with The Gartrell Group.

Hi Liz. Can you let us know what your role at The Gartrell Group is? And when was your first day of work at TGG?

Hi! I’m The Business Development Manager, and I started at The Gartrell Group on March 17th, 2022. My work is focused on connecting with folks who would benefit from the expertise and talent of our team. I look for specific people, mainly within the AEC and Utility industries, to learn about their GIS projects and initiatives and offer our solutions. In short, I'm a sales gal.

Congratulations on year one! What’s your favorite thing about your job?

The people. Geo folks are a different breed, and I appreciate the camaraderie and ease I've found within the community. I am always curious about where someone's love or interest in GIS began because many people I've met are adventurous and love the outdoors.

What got you into doing Business Development?

I used to sell suits at Hugo Boss. I got so tired of wearing HEELS on the concrete floors of our retail space, that I started looking for admin/secretary work so I could sit down for a while! I got an interview at a software company in San Jose - but somehow they got me mixed up for a sales role. I didn't realize what was happening until about halfway through the interview. The pay was about 25% higher + commission for the sales role. So I sold myself as a moldable newbie who could quickly learn on the job and implement their processes quickly. I got the job and did so well my first year, they cut my commission in half. I left shortly after. I spent about ten years doing inside sales and partner/channel management in Silicon Valley - mostly software and hardware. I sold real estate appraisal software, security software, and application delivery controllers/server load balancers. 

Are you a remote worker? Office worker? Hybrid worker? We have so many options these days!

I’m more remote, with the occasional office appearance.

Is there anything that you think people need to know about you?

I live by my calendar(s). If it's not on there, it's not happening! I like to think I'm pretty relaxed, but I was recently told I have "inextinguishable enthusiasm." It made me realize that it's hard to dampen my energy and excitement when I enjoy what I do. I'm driven by connection and community and their importance in our personal and professional lives.

Let’s veer away from work stuff. How do you spend your time when not enthusiastically talking about GIS?

Outside of work, I'm wrangling kids, but I'm also an artist. I spent years freelancing, doing graphic design, and even sculpture. I'm a sign painter's daughter and will find various mediums to satisfy my need to create (including building cities, vending machines, and vehicles out of cardboard for my kids). I also like going to new restaurants with friends or on date nights.

Tell us about your family!

I have two daughters! Polar opposites who keep my husband and me on our toes. We have a cat who is a 100% stereotypical cat. I do have plants! Mostly snake plants and monsteras because they seem to be the most forgiving when you forget to water them for months at a time. My husband also works for TGG as the QA Director, and funny enough, seeing how happy he was at work, I rejected an offer from a giant cloud services company and shimmied my way here. 10/10 would do it again.

Do you like to travel?

I do! I was about six months pregnant with my first daughter when I traveled to Shanghai, China. I went all over the city; The Bund, Yu Garden, Tianzifang, etc. Everyone treated me like I was made of glass, but I felt great! Aside from the 12-hour flight, it was a memorable trip where I look fondly back on fresh dumplings and hot pot.

Meet Ryan Dalton, a data-engineering cartographer

We’re diving into 2023 with another of our Team Bio blog posts. This time, we’re going to get a jump on celebrating this person’s third anniversary with The Gartrell Group! Three years!

Hello and welcome! Tell us your name and what you do.

I’m Ryan Dalton, and I am a Geospatial Developer.

Ryan, your mom is going to read this. What do you actually do?

I mostly do data engineering (still a confused look on their face), which means I download, massage, combine, and eventually configure geospatial (map) data to turn it into something that looks and behaves the way we want to present it to our users. A good example is the WFCA project, where we download fire perimeters every hour, but only want to show relevant changes to the user. We developed new methods to detect changes, return only the relevant updates, and blended the new perimeters with old perimeters to help demonstrate fire progression over the past few days.

Well, that’s an excellent explanation. Thanks! So, as I said, your work anniversary is coming up. When did you start with The Gartrell Group?

February 3rd, 2020!

Congratulations! What’s your favorite part of your job?

I enjoy developing processes that can automate recurring workflows. Then we can let the computer do the hard work of processing data, usually in a hands-off approach, and move on to another interesting task. We also have a really smart group of colleagues that are always ready and able to help solve a challenging problem together.

Do you have any projects that you’re particularly fond of?

WFCA: Designing the ETL to extract data from a variety of cloud data sources and building the database for high performance. In particular, we designed the methodology to display fire perimeter growth, as no other wildfire maps show it in this way.

You are one of TGG’s fully-remote staff. Where do you live?

I live in NW Montana, about 45 minutes from Glacier National Park, and 15 minutes from Whitefish Mountain Resort. I've been part of the GIS community in the Pacific NW since the mid-90s and worked for the ESRI NW office from 2002-2006. I've used GIS analysis in diverse ways, supporting land management, timber harvesting, 911 emergency response, and retail site location for a Fortune 100 company.

Wow. You’ve been a part of the PNW GIS Community for a while! Did you grow up in the Pacific Northwest?

Post Falls, Idaho.

That’s up there! Growing up in Northern Idaho and living in Montana makes me think you’re into outdoorsy pursuits.

I grew up in the outdoors, so most of my time away from work is in the outdoors. My wife and I enjoy camping, fishing, hiking, XC skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, etc. I got into upland bird hunting (pheasant) a few years ago and am looking forward to getting back into it next year.

When I asked you to share photos, you shared one of you on a hockey team. What’s up with that?

I've played for a few years, I'm not very good, but I do my best and have fun doing it. Our team won the league championship that season.

Well, that’s awesome. Do you like to travel?

My wife, Jane, and I usually travel somewhere we can take our dogs with us. So that usually means driving and camping, and we often try to include a visit to some hot springs. We have a nice popup camper that fits in the bed of our truck, so it’s usually a pretty cozy trip.
We've made great trips down into southern Utah, Sedona, the Oregon Coast, and Northern ID. But Montana is such a big state; we’re still exploring many areas that are less than a day’s drive away.

Did I hear you have a side hustle?

Before coming to TGG, I started a personal cartography business called OffTheGridMaps where I design outdoor recreation maps for areas all over Montana. It’s part data discovery (finding original source data from Federal, State, and local governments), part data management (SQL database), and part cartography (giving the map my own unique "style"). I was recently featured in our local newspaper!

Thanks so much, Ryan!

Erick Caceres: Our Punk Rock King of QA

This is a TGG Team Bio post that I’ve been excited about doing since I met our subject. I’ve been saving it as a Christmas present to our readers.

Please meet The Gartrell Group’s resident professional skateboarder, punk rocker, and video game tester, Erick Caceres!!!

While I’m sure you’re clapping, I’m guessing it’s nothing like the applause Erick heard while playing drums in a punk band on tour in Europe or while participating in skateboard comps.

OK, OK… let’s get to it! I’ve already told everyone your name and some of your highlights. Let’s start with your job title.

I am the Director of QA or Assurance of the Quality and Director Variety.

Explain that to a five-year-old. Or me.

Well, normally, in this situation, it's me saying, "UUUUUMMMM....Eh, heh, well,.....I guess I....or rather, I test the....thing,...you know maps? Yeah, we test that and um, ok so check this out, you know COVID right? Of course you do -- when it was at its worst, remember how we all wanted to see just how bad it was but visualized on a map? I test stuff like that."

or

"I'm a software test engineering director, we test web and mobile applications that are centered around data mapping."

Probably the second one :)

Yeah. The second one, for sure. What is your favorite thing about working at TGG?

I love building out our QA program and managing a super rad team of QA engineers who truly make it fun to come to work, along with all the folks at TGG. I love the camaraderie among our team and all the different projects we get to work on. That's more like a list of my favorite things.

It is. But that’s fine. We’ll forgive you.

Is there a project that you’ve worked on that you’re particularly proud of?

Oh gosh...well...there is one in particular that I've worked on since I started Day 1 at TGG back in 2020. It's been a wild, hectic, and looooong ride, with a ton of ups and downs with many many late night, weekend releases. Several of us here have put a lot of ourselves into this project and I DO feel proud for how much and how far we've come on this one.

How long have you been doing this QA thing?

I've been in the QA industry going on 18 years now. I've had quite a few QA jobs in that time!

How did you get into doing QA?

When I started doing QA, I was in my mid-20s in 2005; I was living in a house with five other dudes. My best friend at the time was working at Sony testing Playstation 2 video games and I was like, “HOW THE [HECK] DO I GET THAT JOB?!” I went to interview for it with no experience at all and got hired.

I was 1 of about 200 QA testers testing Playstation 2 games. I worked 90-100 hour work weeks, making $12/hr. I slept under my desk waiting for new builds because back then, we had to wait for them to get burned on a disc to be able to test new fixes. We used to have these contests where we’d be testing a day before the deadline for it to be done, and we’d compete to see who could find the crash that would pause all testing and force the developer to fix the bug and burn new builds again. That was a crazy time; I was on the team that tested and released the Playstation 3 and the PSP release games.

I assume this was after your gig as a pro skateboarder?

Okay - the skateboard thing was actually a very small part of my teenage life. I was just an amateur-sponsored skateboarder in the early- to mid-90s. I went to high school with Jerry Hsu, and came up in that era. I’m talking when I was about 16 years old. I broke my ankle and then continued skating on it anyway. Then I fully broke my ankle, ending any chance of going further in that profession.

Ouch! How’s that ankle today?

It’s trash. I can’t do flip tricks; it never healed 100%. I just coast around now.

According to office lore, you were also a drummer in a band that toured the world. Is this true?

I played in a punk rock band.

Tell me more.

Nothington was a punk rock band from San Francisco, CA. The founding members used to be in Tsunami Bomb. I was 30 years old when I joined that group as a touring drummer. I was with them for all of 2011. I left because after touring with them for a year, I was completely broke, in debt, and I couldn’t hack the vicious cycle of working a job for a few months, saving and paying insane rent in San Francisco, and then going back out on tour for another year.

That sounds like a fun experience and a great lesson in adulting. Speaking of, tell us about your family.

I’m married to Liz Gaines, who also works for the Gartrell Group.

We really are a family business, aren’t we?

Yes! We have two girls who are 6 and 11 years old. We also have a cat named Winnie, some fake plants, and some real ones too.

Do you like to travel? Do you have any good travel stories?

All my travel stories revolve around my life as a touring drummer. They usually revolve around late-night drinking and mildly wild antics. We drove 100 mph in a sprinter van on the Autobahn while everyone was sleeping. We flew down a German cobblestone road in a soapbox cart shaped like a banana. I skateboarded the streets of Trier, Germany, at 3:00 in the morning. I opened up for bands like DOA, Face to Face, BoySetsFire, Hot Water Music, The Bouncing Souls, Between the Buried and Me. Our tour van caught on fire in Spain, and we put it out by throwing some orange Fanta on it.

That’s pretty awesome. Thanks so much for sharing!