Martin Davis is a leading figure in the geospatial development community and also one of the newest additions to the OpenGeo team. Martin will be working out of our new Victoria office and we’re excited to feature him as the first profile in our new series OpenGeo Connections, where we’ll introduce you to some of the geospatial experts that make OpenGeo, well, OpenGeo. Prior to joining us Martin contributed to the development of the JTS Topology Suite, and also initiated the JUMP Universal Mapping Platform, JCS Conflation Suite and RoadMatcher projects.

At this years FOSS4G conference, Martin was recognized with the 2011 Sol Katz Award for achievement in open source geospatial software.

OpenGeo’s David Dubovsky (OG): Martin, welcome to the team!

Martin Davis (MD):  Thanks, I’m happy to be here.

OG: How did you get involved with OpenGeo?

MD: Well, I’ve always kept an eye on the development of GeoServer; since it’s the heavy hitter in the geospatial Java world, naturally there’s many OpenGeo connections there. Also, over the years I’ve kept in close contact with [OpenGeo's] Paul Ramsey and Justin Deolivera, so I often heard about what the organization was doing with the Suite and the other projects within it. When things aligned where I was free and OpenGeo had a position open, I jumped at the chance to work with a great team of developers.

OG: How did you come to software development? Did you go to school for it?

MD: I started my undergraduate degree in Physics, but quickly found that I was all thumbs at the experimental side (never could get those spark carts to work correctly…). But I still really liked building things – and software provided that buzz.  So I switched to Mathematics and Computer Science, and have never regretted the choice.

OG: So you didn’t go to college planning to have a career in the geospatial field?

MD: Well I took a university course on Computational Geometry, and the combination of mathematics and visual geometry had a real appeal. Plus, I’m quite active in the outdoors, so I spend lots of time looking at maps! As for a career, I worked for the Ministry of Forests in the mid 1990s in a section of the IT group that was specializing in advanced spatial applications. From them on, I was hooked.

OG: And how long have you been at it now?

MD: Since 1994 – so over 15 years now.

OG: What other kinds of jobs did you have during, or before, that career?

MD: Looking back I had a bewildering variety of mostly interesting jobs in the early years of my career – including writing various parts of several research compilers (including one for Lucid, a dataflow language far ahead of its time); working on a expert system (remember those?) for psychological diagnosis, creating the “firmware” (on a Radio Shack Model 100) for an Active Drifter, an open-ocean buoy which maintained station and radioed back weather data; and building a Software-based training tool for Air Traffic Control equipment

OG: What about the geospatial projects you’ve worked on. Which do you look back on most fondly?

MD: Of course my on-going work on JTS stands out most of all. Some other interesting projects have been the JCS Conflation Suite, building road network conflation tools for the BC Digital Road Atlas, and working on generating heights of land and stream watersheds for the BC Freshwater Atlas.

OG: What projects will you be working on with OpenGeo?

MD: I’m working with the Support team, as a way of learning the products and the client base. I’m also working on a wide set of enhancements being funded by clients, specifically on catalog improvements. And there seems to be no shortage of other interesting things to get involved in!

OG: So you’ll be working from OpenGeo’s new Victoria office?

MD: Yes, I’m happy to work out of the new office. I live in Victoria with my wife and 3-year old son (who I’m expecting to discover computers any day now!). I’ve lived in Victoria for most of my life and it’s a great place to be if you don’t like shoveling snow.

OG: Congratulations on winning the 2011 Sol Katz Award and welcome aboard. Last question, With you and Paul Ramsey in the same office, will there be too many Sol Katz award winners for a conducive work environment?

MD: Thanks, it was a great honor to win the award and represent the Java tribe. I’ve got no concern about working with Paul as long as there’s enough desk space for me and my award. Happy to join the team!

Tags: connections java, jts, team