[OSGeo-Discuss] Yet another charter member nominee

[karsten vennemann]

Hi there, 
me too I appreciate having being nominated as an OSGeo Charter Member ;). 
Ok let's include first something about my background: I've been a long time
GIS user with a background in Geography and Soil Science. I am a german
national currently living in Seattle USA and am operating my small GIS
consulting shop. I came to the open Source Geospatial world and later OSGeo
mostly because I held a position at a non-profit organization in Seattle
that was called CommEn Space. At the time Tim Schaub was a colleague and
spurred my interest in Mapserver and all other things related to OS GIS
...Since then I have been excited about this approach (Open Source) and made
a choice for myself that this a great approach on how to do things including
running a business. It makes it so much easier to indentify myself with my
work and get satisfaction instead of attaching myself to particular brands
and proprietary approaches. Read more of my views here
http://www.terragis.net/about-terra/motivation/ if you are inclined to do so
;)
I am participating in the CUGOS OSGeo chapter and involved with user
training. I have been giving frequent talks about OS at the local
conferences (WAURISA 2007 -20100 and also FOSS4G this year. Because my
background is more of an GIS user rather than of a developer (even though I
write some scripts) my perspective is that of representing the "user" of OS
Geospatial . I am planning to start ( actually I am in then middle of)
starting a new website that allows users to share their (first or second)
experiences of all kinds of OS geospatial software. I would like to enhance
the documentation resources especially for users in the OS GIS world and see
one of the biggest challenges to provide adequate training, support and
recourses such as manuals tutorials. This stems from my personal background
but also the fact that software without many users will not spread around
that much. I have organized several workshops for the CUGOS chapter over the
last two years and I am also active teaching professional classes for web
GIS and desktop GIS. Most recently my (one person) company became a
collaborator of the gvSIG association
http://www.gvsig.com/news/the-international-network-of-the-gvsig-association
-has-been-extended-usa-japan-and-germany.

I would be excited and honored to get more involved with OSGeo through
Charter Membership.

Cheers
Karsten Vennemann

Terra GIS LTD
Seattle, WA  98112
USA 
www.terragis.net