HIGH PROFILE
The woodsman from LA
Editor Chris Cann chats with
Esri’s forestry frontman, Peter Eredics, about growing up in Canada's wilderness, the
importance of GIS technology during the worst economic
downturn we've seen, and how Southern California makes leaving Canada bearable
International Forest Industries: How did you get started in forestry?
Peter Eredics: I grew up in rural Canada and we spent all of our free time in the woods camping, fishing, hunting, hiking, cross- country skiing, and canoeing. I was very comfortable in the backcountry – the true wilderness in the middle of nowhere. I became fascinated with the forest industry when I started to learn about the multidisciplinary nature of it – biology, geography, physics and many other sciences – it seemed like such a fascinating and practical field with tremendous options in terms of work environment and career opportunities. And frankly I didn’t see myself moving outside my rural setting. I graduated from Forestry School at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in 1993 and started working in the field doing forest engineering and silviculture work with Canadian Forest Products. I quickly came to realise that there were some regulatory requirements that we couldn’t comply with without spending a lot of money or looking at a technology solution. As a recent graduate I had taken a course on geographic information systems (GIS) and completed a
summer internship using it. So I suggested we should consider a GIS solution. I immediately was given the job of running the company’s divisional GIS operation. From that vantage point, I saw ways that GIS could help foresters and it soon became my passion. I worked for different industrial forest companies and did consulting work internationally on large scale projects. I also taught college-level GIS courses for almost 10 years. I was then recruited to work for Esri. I initially sent out a few emails to test the
water and Esri must have got wind of it because after a few weeks, I flew down for the interview and was hired. Now I live in Southern California, next to the desert, where there are no trees.
IFI: How do you handle life without trees? PE: I plant a lot of trees and I try to pretend that palm trees are real trees. One of downsides of living next to the Mojave Desert in Southern California is that – it’s just not green, which is hard for someone like me who’s used to seeing an endless sea of green.
The flipside is that I see endless blue sky, which compensates, plus it’s hot and I don’t have to shovel snow.
IFI: What is it about Esri and GIS technology that keeps your passion going? PE: The work that I do is fascinating – both the company and my job – and that’s what really brought me down here. Esri is a software company, that’s what we do. It just so happens that we sell that software to various industries including forestry. Forestry was the first commercial
Fertiliser Treatment Planning (Brazil) FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012 | International Forest Industries 69
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